Carrier route record
OOORD→ORF
SkyWest Airlines · Chicago to Norfolk
- Flights
- 280
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 14%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on ORD to ORF sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 280 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 447 at 81.4% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.4% on time across 447 flights.
Key figures
On time
68.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 274 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.8%
Every carrier on ORD to ORF, 1,957 flights
These figures cover 280 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on ORD to ORF
SkyWest flew 280 of the 1,957 flights on ORD to ORF, about 14% of it. Its 68.2% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 71.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 81.4% to PSA at 52.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 Airlines (this page)thin 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.
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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 45 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am100 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am19 flights—
- 11am–2pm53 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm41 flights52.5%
- 5pm–8pm43 flights39.0%
- 8pm–5am24 flights—
Scale runs 30% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 39.0% on time, against 84.0% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 100 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on ORD to ORF through the year
- Oct–Dec 202516 flights—
- Jan–Mar 202616 flights—
- Apr–Jun 2026124 flights72.7%
- Jul–Sep 2026124 flights66.9%
Scale runs 60% to 80%. 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 68.2% on time across 280 flights.
Split by quarter, SkyWest on ORD to ORF logged 16 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 16 flights in Jan–Mar 2026, 124 flights in Apr–Jun 2026 and 124 flights in Jul–Sep 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 68.2% annual figure is the one to use.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 76.3% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 58.3%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on ORD to ORF runs when it is late
The 87 late arrivals split 43 under half an hour, 21 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 23 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early53 flights19.3%
- Within 15 min134 flights48.9%
- 15–29 min late43 flights15.7%
- 30–59 min late21 flights7.7%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights5.5%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 274 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 54 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 2 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 35 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORF.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on ORD to ORF
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 December 2025, 4 hours 20 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 December 2025 | 4 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 July 2026 | 3 hours 46 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 July 2026 | 3 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 August 2026 | 3 hours 22 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 29 July 2026 | 2 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest 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 4,542 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,824 of the 4,542 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,542 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 84.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.14% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 80.7% on time across 279 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 280 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 ORF
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 280 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 68.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 274 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to ORF, every carrier
- SkyWest on ORF to ORD, the return leg
- Republic Airways on ORD to ORF81.4%
- Envoy Air on ORD to ORF79.8%
- United Airlines on ORD to ORF66.1%
- PSA Airlines on ORD to ORF52.4%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.