Carrier route record
OOORD→FSD
SkyWest Airlines · Chicago to Sioux Falls
- Flights
- 964
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 1.9% 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 964 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so SkyWest on ORD to FSD runs 16 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 161 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
61.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 927 completed flights
Avg delay
103 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
63.5%
Every carrier on ORD to FSD, 1,790 flights
These figures cover 964 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 20.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on ORD to FSD
SkyWest flew 964 of the 1,790 flights on ORD to FSD, most of the route. Its 61.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 63.5%. 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 59.1%. 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) | 964 | 61.2% | 103 min | 3.73% | D− |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 346 | 59.1% | 67 min | 2.89% | D |
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.
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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am276 flights67.6%
- 11am–2pm81 flights64.9%
- 2pm–5pm346 flights61.3%
- 5pm–8pm46 flights43.2%
- 8pm–5am215 flights54.7%
Scale runs 35% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 43.2% on time, against 67.6% 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 346 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 48.6%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on ORD to FSD runs when it is late
When SkyWest on ORD to FSD is late it tends to be very late: 185 of its 360 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 79 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early186 flights20.1%
- Within 15 min381 flights41.1%
- 15–29 min late70 flights7.6%
- 30–59 min late105 flights11.3%
- 1–2 hours late106 flights11.4%
- 2+ hours late79 flights8.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 927 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 332 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 31 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 59 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at FSD.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on ORD to FSD
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 January 2026, 21 hours behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in December 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 January 2026 | 21 hours | Carrier |
| 14 December 2025 | 18 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 December 2025 | 16 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 September 2025 | 15 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 December 2025 | 13 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 37,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Extreme weather
- 13%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 20% 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 3.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 37,029 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.73%, 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 costs
20.0% 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 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 61.1% on time across 964 flights, within half a point 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. 964 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 3.73% 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. 927 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 FSD59.1%
- 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 7.05 million flight records
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.