Route reliability record
ORD→PIT
Chicago to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 4,029
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 413 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,029 ORD to PIT flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,722 at 80.3% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to PIT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.3%, against 73.6% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 80.3% on time across 1,722 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,932 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.28%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
80.3% on time across 1,722 flights
These figures cover 4,029 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 PIT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 80.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 54.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 616 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,722 | 80.3% | 85 min | 2.56% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 138 | 80.0% | 68 min | 2.17% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,318 | 74.2% | 68 min | 1.37% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 235 | 68.3% | 63 min | 3.40% | C− |
| American Airlines | 616 | 54.2% | 100 min | 3.08% | F− |
American Airlines cancels 3.1% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD to PIT
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 Pittsburgh
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → PITChicago to Pittsburgh | Southwest Airlines | 79.3% | 80.3% | 1.28% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. ORD → PITChicago to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 78.2% | 80.3% | 2.56% | 8am–11am, Tue | YX 3464 21:20 |
| 3. ORD → PITChicago to Pittsburgh | United Airlines | 73.2% | 74.2% | 1.37% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1285 07:15 |
| 4. ORD → PITChicago to Pittsburgh | American Airlines | 52.5% | 54.2% | 3.08% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
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 24 points, against 26 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am346 flights87.1%
- 8am–11am821 flights81.3%
- 11am–2pm459 flights79.3%
- 2pm–5pm897 flights70.2%
- 5pm–8pm886 flights63.4%
- 8pm–5am620 flights71.1%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.4% on time, against 87.1% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 897 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to PIT 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 PIT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 63.4%, a wide gap of 23.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.1%
- 8–11am81.3%
- 11am–2pm79.3%
- 2–5pm70.2%
- 5–8pm63.4%
- 8pm–5am71.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 85.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 397 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.5%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 85,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 85,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 84,647 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 87.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.28% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.0% 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.
At 413 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.1% on time across 4,031 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,029 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 PIT 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 85.2% on time and March 60.1%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 3,932 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to PIT questions
How often is ORD to PIT delayed?
About 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 26.4% of the 4,029 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 PIT?
Republic Airways leads at 80.3% on time across 1,722 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 54.2%, a gap of 26 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 PIT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.4%, 24 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 March delays on ORD to PIT?
March is the weakest month at 60.1% on time, compared with 85.2% in September. Across the year that is 25 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
- PIT to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to PIT80.3%
- Envoy Air on ORD to PIT80.0%
- United Airlines on ORD to PIT74.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to PIT68.3%
- American Airlines on ORD to PIT54.2%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- LGA to PIT, a related route78.3%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.0%
- United Airlines on-time record74.2%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to PIT and PIT 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.