Carrier route record
OOORD→FSD
SkyWest Airlines · Chicago to Sioux Falls
- Flights
- 1,005
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 55%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on ORD to FSD carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 1,005 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on ORD to FSD runs 15 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 154 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
62.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 965 completed flights
Avg delay
103 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.68%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
63.3%
Every carrier on ORD to FSD, 1,829 flights
These figures cover 1,005 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 18.3% 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
SkyWest against every carrier on ORD to FSD
SkyWest flew 1,005 of the 1,829 flights on ORD to FSD, most of the route. Its 62.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 63.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 73.3% to United at 55.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 30 | 73.3% | 81 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Envoy Air | 390 | 72.5% | 52 min | 3.85% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 60 | 63.8% | 59 min | 3.33% | D− |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 1,005 | 62.2% | 103 min | 3.68% | D− |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 344 | 55.0% | 73 min | 2.91% | D |
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am333 flights69.7%
- 11am–2pm78 flights64.9%
- 2pm–5pm343 flights60.4%
- 5pm–8pm47 flights44.4%
- 8pm–5am204 flights55.3%
Scale runs 35% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 44.4% on time, against 69.7% for the 8am–11am 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 343 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on ORD to FSD through the year
December is the weak month at 39.8% on time, against 80.5% in May. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 128 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 68.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 52.5%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 50% of the 37,000 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.
- 50%Carrier
- 22%Extreme weather
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 22% 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 3.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 37,451 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 19,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.68%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 18.3% 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 462 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 59.3% on time across 1,004 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,005 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 SkyWest on ORD to FSD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.68% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 965 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to FSD, every carrier
- SkyWest on FSD to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to FSD72.5%
- United Airlines on ORD to FSD55.0%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.