Carrier route record
MQORD→OMA
Envoy Air · Chicago to Omaha
- Flights
- 855
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Envoy Air.
Envoy on ORD to OMA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 855 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,348 at 70.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Envoy on ORD to OMA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 826 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.3%
Every carrier on ORD to OMA, 3,022 flights
These figures cover 855 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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
Envoy against every carrier on ORD to OMA
Envoy flew 855 of the 3,022 flights on ORD to OMA, about 28% of it. Its 75.8% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 75.8% to American at 50.0%. Three 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 70.6% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 63.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 381 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air (this page) | 855 | 75.8% | 55 min | 3.27% | B− |
| United Airlines | 1,348 | 70.6% | 65 min | 1.19% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 170 | 70.1% | 66 min | 3.53% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 381 | 63.2% | 83 min | 2.89% | D |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 57.1% | 60 min | 12.50% | D− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 260 | 50.0% | 63 min | 1.92% | F |
United leads SkyWest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Departure window
When Envoy runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am93 flights79.5%
- 8am–11am143 flights78.9%
- 11am–2pm280 flights81.9%
- 2pm–5pm69 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm153 flights66.4%
- 8pm–5am117 flights70.6%
Scale runs 60% 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 81.9% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 66.4%. 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 280 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Envoy on ORD to OMA through the year
January is the weak month at 63.4% on time, against 87.1% in May. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 110 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.3%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Envoy runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 11,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 15%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
48% 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 11,000 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 10,930 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.27%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
7.4% 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 about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 416 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 75.6% on time across 855 flights, within half 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. 855 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 Envoy on ORD to OMA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.27% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 55 minutes; 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. 826 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to OMA, every carrier
- Envoy on OMA to ORD, the return leg
- United Airlines on ORD to OMA70.6%
- Republic Airways on ORD to OMA70.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to OMA63.2%
- American Airlines on ORD to OMA50.0%
- Envoy Air network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.