Carrier route record
YXORD→DSM
Republic Airways · Chicago to Des Moines
- Flights
- 566
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- 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 DSM sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 566 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 465 at 75.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on ORD to DSM from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 537 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.0%
Every carrier on ORD to DSM, 3,405 flights
These figures cover 566 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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
Republic against every carrier on ORD to DSM
Republic flew 566 of the 3,405 flights on ORD to DSM, about 17% of it. Its 75.6% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 75.6% to PSA at 0.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 75.4% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 67.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,168 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 566 | 75.6% | 74 min | 4.95% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 465 | 75.4% | 62 min | 2.58% | B |
| United Airlines | 943 | 73.4% | 69 min | 1.70% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,168 | 67.0% | 79 min | 5.14% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 262 | 61.8% | 117 min | 4.96% | D− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 176 min | 0.00% | F+ |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.1% 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
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 30 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am54 flights87.0%
- 8am–11am128 flights85.0%
- 11am–2pm124 flights85.1%
- 2pm–5pm67 flights72.7%
- 5pm–8pm32 flights74.2%
- 8pm–5am161 flights57.2%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.2% on time, against 87.0% for the 5am–8am 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 161 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on ORD to DSM through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 92.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.4%. 13 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 53% of the 9,628 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 14%Carrier
- 11%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 9,628 reported delay minutes.
53% 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 9,628 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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.
Cancellations run at 4.95%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 77.9% on time across 565 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 566 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Republic on ORD to DSM
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.95% 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. 537 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to DSM, every carrier
- Republic on DSM to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to DSM75.4%
- United Airlines on ORD to DSM73.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to DSM67.0%
- American Airlines on ORD to DSM61.8%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) 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.