Carrier route record
YXORD→CVG
Republic Airways · Chicago to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 1,368
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on ORD to CVG carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,368 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 945 at 72.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on ORD to CVG from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,321 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.36%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.2%
Every carrier on ORD to CVG, 4,647 flights
These figures cover 1,368 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on ORD to CVG
Republic flew 1,368 of the 4,647 flights on ORD to CVG, about 29% of it. Its 79.3% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 79.3% to American at 58.2%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 72.4% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 63.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 896 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,368 | 79.3% | 66 min | 3.36% | B− |
| United Airlines | 945 | 72.4% | 69 min | 1.69% | C |
| Envoy Air | 1,333 | 71.4% | 71 min | 2.40% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 37 | 68.6% | 125 min | 5.41% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 896 | 63.4% | 89 min | 5.36% | D− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 68 | 58.2% | 89 min | 1.47% | D |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.4% 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.
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on ORD to CVG
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am350 flights88.2%
- 8am–11am242 flights76.2%
- 11am–2pm255 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm138 flights85.3%
- 5pm–8pm175 flights72.1%
- 8pm–5am208 flights68.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.2% of the time, against 68.2% 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. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 350 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on ORD to CVG through the year
December is the weak month at 60.5% on time, against 94.5% in September. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 178 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.1%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 18,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
44% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 split is drawn from 18,033 reported delay minutes.
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 88.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.36%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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 costs
7.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 77.8% on time across 1,346 flights, within 2 points 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 1,368 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 Republic on ORD to CVG
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.36% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 1,321 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to CVG, every carrier
- Republic on CVG to ORD, the return leg
- United Airlines on ORD to CVG72.4%
- Envoy Air on ORD to CVG71.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to CVG63.4%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.