Route reliability record
ORD→CVG
Chicago to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 4,607
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 264 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,607 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,407 at 77.9% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 77.9% on time across 1,407 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,474 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.82%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Republic
77.9% on time across 1,407 flights
These figures cover 4,607 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to CVG
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 77.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 63.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 872 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,407 | 77.9% | 68 min | 2.84% | B |
| United Airlines | 919 | 72.5% | 66 min | 1.52% | C |
| Envoy Air | 1,304 | 69.6% | 66 min | 2.15% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 37 | 68.6% | 125 min | 5.41% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 872 | 63.7% | 85 min | 5.16% | D− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 68 | 58.2% | 89 min | 1.47% | D |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.2% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am438 flights85.9%
- 8am–11am730 flights74.3%
- 11am–2pm830 flights72.9%
- 2pm–5pm958 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm1,067 flights67.8%
- 8pm–5am584 flights66.4%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.9% of the time, against 66.4% for the overnight window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 59.5% on time, against 80.7% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.5%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 92,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 92,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 85.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.82%, against 1.80% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 264 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 70.1% on time across 4,590 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,607 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.82% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic.
Common questions
ORD to CVG questions
How often is ORD to CVG delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.6% of the 4,607 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to CVG?
Republic Airways leads at 77.9% on time across 1,407 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 63.7%, a gap of 14 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORD to CVG?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.4%, 20 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on ORD to CVG?
December is the weakest month at 59.5% on time, compared with 80.7% in May. Across the year that is 21 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- CVG to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on-time record77.9%
- United Airlines on-time record72.5%
- Envoy Air on-time record69.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ORD to CVG and CVG to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.