Carrier route record
OOORD→MEM
SkyWest Airlines · Chicago to Memphis
- Flights
- 832
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 34%
- 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 MEM sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 832 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 822 at 78.6% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on ORD to MEM runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 58 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 817 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.44%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.8%
Every carrier on ORD to MEM, 2,468 flights
These figures cover 832 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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 MEM
SkyWest flew 832 of the 2,468 flights on ORD to MEM, about 34% of it. Its 71.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 78.6% to American at 37.5%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 78.6% of the time; Republic Airways manages 70.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 465 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 822 | 78.6% | 55 min | 3.16% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 832 | 71.8% | 67 min | 1.44% | C |
| Republic Airways | 465 | 70.7% | 74 min | 5.38% | C− |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 333 | 65.4% | 72 min | 3.60% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 16 | 37.5% | 66 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Republic Airways cancels 5.4% 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.
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on ORD to MEM
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 34 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am46 flights77.3%
- 8am–11am342 flights75.7%
- 11am–2pm320 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm90 flights43.0%
- 5pm–8pm20 flights—
- 8pm–5am14 flights—
Scale runs 35% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 77.3% of the time, against 43.0% for the afternoon window. That is 34 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 342 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on ORD to MEM through the year
December is the weak month at 62.0% on time, against 89.7% 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. June was the busiest month here, with 94 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.3%. 13 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 45% of the 15,000 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 6,915 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 15,360 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.44% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.36%.
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. 9.5% 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 491 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 73.1% on time across 835 flights, within about 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. 832 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 MEM
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 832 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 71.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 817 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to MEM, every carrier
- SkyWest on MEM to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to MEM78.6%
- Republic Airways on ORD to MEM70.7%
- United Airlines on ORD to MEM65.4%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.