Carrier route record

YXORD→IAH

Republic Airways · Chicago to Houston

Flights: 359
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 6%
Carriers: 8

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.

Republic on ORD to IAH lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 359 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 4,000 at 78.6% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on ORD to IAH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

76.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 350 completed flights

Avg delay

69 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.51%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.0%

Every carrier on ORD to IAH, 6,077 flights

These figures cover 359 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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 IAH

Republic flew 359 of the 6,077 flights on ORD to IAH, about 6% of it. Its 76.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of eight carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.6% to SkyWest at 0.0%. Five of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 78.6% of the time; American Airlines manages 60.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 798 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on ORD to IAH
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	4,000	78.6%	67 min	0.65%	B+
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	359	76.3%	69 min	2.51%	B
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	249	76.0%	96 min	2.41%	B
Envoy Airthin sample	358	74.4%	63 min	1.40%	C
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	307	63.1%	102 min	5.54%	D−
American Airlines	798	60.6%	84 min	3.01%	D−
PSA Airlinesthin sample	4	50.0%	74 min	0.00%	F+
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	2	0.0%	32 min	0.00%	F+

American Airlines cancels 3.0% 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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 359 flights.

5am–8am45 flights81.8%
8am–11am145 flights75.9%
11am–2pm157 flights76.0%
2pm–5pm10 flights—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am2 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 81.8% on time for the 5am–8am window against 75.9% for 8am–11am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 157 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on ORD to IAH through the year

Jul–Sep 202590 flights80.5%
Oct–Dec 202598 flights75.5%
Jan–Mar 202647 flights80.4%
Apr–Jun 2026124 flights72.4%

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 76.3% on time across 359 flights.

Quarter by quarter Republic on ORD to IAH held fairly steady: 80.5% in Jul–Sep 2025, 75.5% in Oct–Dec 2025, 80.4% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 72.4% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 67.3%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Republic runs late on this route

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 5,714 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
36%
Late-arriving aircraft
30%
Extreme weather
19%
Carrier
15%

Extreme weather accounts for 19% 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 3.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 5,714 reported delay minutes.

36% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,057 minutes out of 5,714, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 2.51%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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. 9.7% 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.

The 925 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.7% on time across 357 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 359 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 IAH

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 359 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 76.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 350 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures