Carrier route record
YXORD→MSN
Republic Airways · Chicago to Madison
- Flights
- 651
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 16%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on ORD to MSN 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 651 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 1,068 at 76.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on ORD to MSN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 634 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.4%
Every carrier on ORD to MSN, 4,029 flights
These figures cover 651 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on ORD to MSN
Republic flew 651 of the 4,029 flights on ORD to MSN, about 16% of it. Its 78.4% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 78.4% to PSA at 49.5%. One 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 76.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 67.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,266 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 651 | 78.4% | 76 min | 2.46% | B |
| Envoy Air | 1,068 | 76.9% | 67 min | 3.93% | B− |
| United Airlines | 936 | 68.7% | 70 min | 2.03% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,266 | 67.0% | 97 min | 5.13% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 108 | 49.5% | 127 min | 10.19% | F− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.1% 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 651 flights.
- 5am–8am17 flights—
- 8am–11am170 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm177 flights81.6%
- 2pm–5pm72 flights74.6%
- 5pm–8pm98 flights77.9%
- 8pm–5am117 flights75.0%
Scale runs 65% 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 81.6% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 74.6%. 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 177 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on ORD to MSN through the year
June is the worst month at 65.6% on time, 22 points below April, the best at 87.4%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 96 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 74.0%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 10,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
46% 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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 10,423 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.46% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 108 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 runs 76.0% on time across 650 flights, within 2 points 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. 651 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 MSN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 651 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 78.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 634 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to MSN, every carrier
- Republic on MSN to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to MSN76.9%
- United Airlines on ORD to MSN68.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to MSN67.0%
- PSA Airlines on ORD to MSN49.5%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.