Route reliability record
ORD→FNT
Chicago to Flint
- Flights
- 1,866
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 223 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 1,866 ORD to FNT flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Best time to fly ORD to FNT: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 76.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 71.8%, against 64.5% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 128 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
64.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,787 completed flights
Avg delay
100 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.18%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
64.5% on time across 1,866 flights
These figures cover 1,866 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 17.9% 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 FNT
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,866 | 64.5% | 100 min | 4.18% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD to FNT
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Flint
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → DTWChicago to Detroit | Envoy Air | 75.6% | 78.2% | 3.38% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → DTWChicago to Detroit | Republic Airways | 75.5% | 79.2% | 4.63% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 3. ORD → DTWChicago to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 74.8% | 77.3% | 3.20% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2039 07:10 |
| 4. MDW → DTWChicago to Detroit | Southwest Airlines | 72.6% | 73.9% | 1.82% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 5. ORD → LANChicago to Lansing | Envoy Air | 70.8% | 72.8% | 2.79% | 2pm–5pm, 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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am21 flights—
- 8am–11am193 flights70.2%
- 11am–2pm430 flights76.1%
- 2pm–5pm431 flights58.9%
- 5pm–8pm163 flights55.0%
- 8pm–5am628 flights60.5%
Scale runs 45% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.0% on time, against 76.1% 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 628 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to FNT 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 FNT, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 76.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 55.0%, a wide gap of 21.1 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am70.2%
- 11am–2pm76.1%
- 2–5pm58.9%
- 5–8pm55.0%
- 8pm–5am60.5%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 55.6% on time, against 77.6% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 182 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 71.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.8%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 63,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Extreme weather
- 14%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 23% 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 3.7 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 63,305 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 23,000 of the 63,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 4.18%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
17.9% 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 223 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 66.9% on time across 1,866 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 1,866 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 FNT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.18% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,787 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to FNT questions
How often is ORD to FNT delayed?
About 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 35.5% of the 1,866 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is ORD to FNT compared with the rest of the country?
64.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 13 points against it. That is worth a D− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORD to FNT?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 76.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.0%, 21 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 FNT?
December is the weakest month at 55.6% on time, compared with 77.6% in September. Across the year that is 22 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
- FNT to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- ORD to LAX, a related route72.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record64.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ORD to FNT and FNT to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.