Route reliability record
ORD→DSM
Chicago to Des Moines
- Flights
- 3,399
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 299 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 3,399 ORD to DSM flights, of which Republic Airways flew 612 at 76.4% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to DSM: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 79.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.8%, against 70.8% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 76.4% on time across 612 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,267 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
76.4% on time across 612 flights
These figures cover 3,399 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to DSM
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.4% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 65.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,082 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 612 | 76.4% | 74 min | 4.25% | B− |
| United Airlines | 1,019 | 72.8% | 75 min | 1.57% | C |
| Envoy Air | 485 | 72.5% | 63 min | 3.09% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 200 | 67.0% | 103 min | 4.50% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,082 | 65.5% | 77 min | 5.36% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 176 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Des Moines
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → DSMChicago to Des Moines | Republic Airways | 73.2% | 76.4% | 4.25% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. ORD → DSMChicago to Des Moines | United Airlines | 71.7% | 72.8% | 1.57% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → DSMChicago to Des Moines | Envoy Air | 70.3% | 72.5% | 3.09% | 2pm–5pm, Sat | — |
| 4. ORD → DSMChicago to Des Moines | SkyWest Airlines | 62.0% | 65.5% | 5.36% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 18 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am272 flights78.9%
- 8am–11am609 flights78.4%
- 11am–2pm689 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm577 flights64.1%
- 5pm–8pm483 flights65.8%
- 8pm–5am769 flights61.8%
Scale runs 55% to 85%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.8% on time, against 79.5% for the 11am–2pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 769 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to DSM by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ORD to DSM, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 79.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 61.8%, a wide gap of 17.7 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am78.9%
- 8–11am78.4%
- 11am–2pm79.5%
- 2–5pm64.1%
- 5–8pm65.8%
- 8pm–5am61.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
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 60.5% on time, against 81.4% 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. April was the busiest month here, with 369 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.0%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 72,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 72,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 72,426 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.65%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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
11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 299 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 73.6% on time across 3,396 flights, within 3 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 3,399 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DSM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.65% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,267 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to DSM questions
How often is ORD to DSM delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.2% of the 3,399 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to DSM?
Republic Airways leads at 76.4% on time across 612 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 65.5%, a gap of 11 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 DSM?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 79.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.8%, 18 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 DSM?
December is the weakest month at 60.5% on time, compared with 81.4% in September. 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
- DSM to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to DSM76.4%
- United Airlines on ORD to DSM72.8%
- Envoy Air on ORD to DSM72.5%
- American Airlines on ORD to DSM67.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to DSM65.5%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DEN to DSM, a related route79.9%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.4%
- United Airlines on-time record72.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record72.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to DSM and DSM to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ORD to DSM’s on-time badge on your site
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.