Route reliability record
ORD→ORF
Chicago to Norfolk
- Flights
- 1,957
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 717 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,957 ORD to ORF flights, of which Republic Airways flew 447 at 81.4% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to ORF: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 76.5%, against 71.8% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.4% on time across 447 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,902 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
81.4% on time across 447 flights
These figures cover 1,957 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to ORF
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 81.4% of the time; United Airlines manages 66.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 590 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 447 | 81.4% | 75 min | 1.12% | B |
| Envoy Air | 443 | 79.8% | 61 min | 2.26% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 280 | 68.2% | 52 min | 2.14% | C |
| United Airlines | 590 | 66.1% | 70 min | 1.53% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 11 | 54.5% | 61 min | 0.00% | F+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 186 | 52.4% | 89 min | 10.75% | F− |
The spread between Republic and United is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD to ORF
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Norfolk
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → ORFChicago to Norfolk | Republic Airways | 80.5% | 81.4% | 1.12% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. ORD → ORFChicago to Norfolk | Envoy Air | 78.0% | 79.8% | 2.26% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. ORD → ORFChicago to Norfolk | United Airlines | 65.1% | 66.1% | 1.53% | 11am–2pm, Tue | UA 1178 18:15 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 25 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am247 flights86.2%
- 8am–11am265 flights78.3%
- 11am–2pm382 flights73.0%
- 2pm–5pm314 flights76.3%
- 5pm–8pm675 flights61.1%
- 8pm–5am74 flights68.1%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.1% on time, against 86.2% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 675 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to ORF by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ORD to ORF, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.1%, a wide gap of 25.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.2%
- 8–11am78.3%
- 11am–2pm73.0%
- 2–5pm76.3%
- 5–8pm61.1%
- 8pm–5am68.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 53.9% on time, against 81.1% 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. May was the busiest month here, with 211 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 66.9%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 37,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 36,982 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.55%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 actually costs
11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 717 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.7% on time across 1,959 flights, 5 points above 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,957 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ORF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 81.1% on time and December 53.9%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,902 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to ORF questions
How often is ORD to ORF delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.2% of the 1,957 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to ORF?
Republic Airways leads at 81.4% on time across 447 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 66.1%, a gap of 15 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORD to ORF?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.1%, 25 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on ORD to ORF?
December is the weakest month at 53.9% on time, compared with 81.1% in September. Across the year that is 27 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- ORF to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to ORF81.4%
- Envoy Air on ORD to ORF79.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to ORF68.2%
- United Airlines on ORD to ORF66.1%
- PSA Airlines on ORD to ORF52.4%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to ORF, a related route78.7%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record81.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record79.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record68.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ORD to ORF and ORF to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.