Carrier route record
OOORD→LIT
SkyWest Airlines · Chicago to Little Rock
- Flights
- 435
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on ORD to LIT sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 435 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on ORD to LIT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 415 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.8%
Every carrier on ORD to LIT, 1,406 flights
These figures cover 435 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% 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 LIT
SkyWest flew 435 of the 1,406 flights on ORD to LIT, about 31% of it. Its 73.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 100.0% to Republic at 64.3%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Air | 953 | 75.4% | 59 min | 1.57% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 435 | 73.7% | 79 min | 4.60% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 15 | 64.3% | 128 min | 6.67% | D− |
Departure window
When SkyWest 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 435 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am243 flights73.6%
- 11am–2pm43 flights74.4%
- 2pm–5pm124 flights77.0%
- 5pm–8pm17 flights—
- 8pm–5am8 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 2pm–5pm window is the strongest at 77.0% on time. The full set of windows spans 3 points.
Across the year
SkyWest on ORD to LIT through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 80.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 73 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.9%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest 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 8,631 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 17%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 17% 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 2.7 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 8,631 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 2,985 of the 8,631 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 4.60%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.6% 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 552 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 61.0% on time across 437 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 435 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 LIT
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.60% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 2pm–5pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 415 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.