Carrier route record

YXORD→MKE

Republic Airways · Chicago to Milwaukee

Flights: 112
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 2%
Carriers: 4

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

Republic on ORD to MKE lands a B−, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five 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 112 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

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

On time

78.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 104 completed flights

Avg delay

77 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

7.14%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

64.1%

Every carrier on ORD to MKE, 5,201 flights

These figures cover 112 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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

Republic against every carrier on ORD to MKE

Republic flew 112 of the 5,201 flights on ORD to MKE, about 2% of it. Its 78.8% on time is 15 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 64.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 78.8% to Envoy at 63.7%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on ORD to MKE
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	112	78.8%	77 min	7.14%	B−
PSA Airlinesthin sample	26	72.7%	312 min	15.38%	C−
SkyWest Airlines	4,933	63.7%	93 min	4.64%	D−
Envoy Airthin sample	130	63.7%	67 min	4.62%	D−

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 112 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am14 flights—
11am–2pm36 flights81.8%
2pm–5pm59 flights76.8%
5pm–8pm3 flights—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 81.8% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 76.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 59 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on ORD to MKE through the year

Jul–Sep 20258 flights—
Oct–Dec 2025102 flights78.7%
Jan–Mar 20261 flights—
Apr–Jun 20261 flights—

Scale runs 70% 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 78.8% on time across 112 flights.

Split by quarter, Republic on ORD to MKE logged 8 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 102 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 1 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 1 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 78.8% annual figure is the one to use.

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 1,702 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
39%
Carrier
35%
National Airspace System
25%
Extreme weather
1%

39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 1,702 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 33 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 1,702 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 598 of the 1,702 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations run at 7.14%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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. 11.5% 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 67 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.1% on time across 113 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 112 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 MKE

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.14% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 104 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