Carrier route record
AAORD→EWR
American Airlines · Chicago to Newark
- Flights
- 926
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 15%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ORD to EWR carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, a little over half of flights arrive on time, worth a D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 926 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 533 at 78.0% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on ORD to EWR runs 18 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 183 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
59.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 876 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.97%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
69.8%
Every carrier on ORD to EWR, 6,126 flights
These figures cover 926 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 21.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on ORD to EWR
American flew 926 of the 6,126 flights on ORD to EWR, about 15% of it. Its 59.0% on time is 11 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 69.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 78.0% to Spirit at 45.6%. 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 78.0% of the time; United Airlines manages 72.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 4,415 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 533 | 78.0% | 60 min | 5.82% | B− |
| United Airlines | 4,415 | 72.0% | 89 min | 2.85% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 102 | 60.2% | 83 min | 7.84% | D− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 926 | 59.0% | 87 min | 4.97% | D− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 150 | 45.6% | 79 min | 15.33% | F− |
Envoy Air cancels 5.8% 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.
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Departure window
When American 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 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am105 flights79.2%
- 8am–11am107 flights66.0%
- 11am–2pm149 flights71.2%
- 2pm–5pm53 flights51.0%
- 5pm–8pm356 flights51.3%
- 8pm–5am156 flights49.0%
Scale runs 40% to 85%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 49.0% on time, against 79.2% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 356 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ORD to EWR through the year
December is the weak month at 33.3% on time, against 67.5% in April. 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 155 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 70.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 50.0%, a spread of 21 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on ORD to EWR runs when it is late
American on ORD to EWR often beats the schedule: 244 of 876 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When American on ORD to EWR is late it tends to be very late: 192 of its 359 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 72 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early244 flights27.9%
- Within 15 min273 flights31.2%
- 15–29 min late71 flights8.1%
- 30–59 min late96 flights11.0%
- 1–2 hours late120 flights13.7%
- 2+ hours late72 flights8.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 876 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
71 of 404 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 26 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on ORD to EWR
The latest arrival of the period was on 30 March 2026, 11 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 30 March 2026 | 11 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 March 2026 | 11 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 July 2026 | 10 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 September 2025 | 9 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 July 2026 | 6 hours 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 31,339 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 79.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.97%, against 1.89% 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
21.9% 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.
The 719 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.8% on time across 924 flights, 18 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 18 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 926 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 American on ORD to EWR
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.97% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 876 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to EWR, every carrier
- American on EWR to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to EWR78.0%
- United Airlines on ORD to EWR72.0%
- Republic Airways on ORD to EWR60.2%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to EWR45.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.