Carrier route record
YXORD→PIT
Republic Airways · Chicago to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 1,628
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- 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 PIT lands a B, 4 points 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 1,628 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,291 at 75.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on ORD to PIT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,590 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.9%
Every carrier on ORD to PIT, 3,948 flights
These figures cover 1,628 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 PIT
Republic flew 1,628 of the 3,948 flights on ORD to PIT, about 41% of it. Its 81.4% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 83.2% to American at 55.0%. Two 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 75.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 55.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 603 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 189 | 83.2% | 64 min | 2.12% | B |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,628 | 81.4% | 80 min | 2.27% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,291 | 75.8% | 66 min | 1.01% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 237 | 68.5% | 66 min | 2.11% | C |
| American Airlines | 603 | 55.0% | 105 min | 2.99% | D |
The spread between United and American is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on ORD to PIT
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 1,628 flights.
- 5am–8am52 flights86.5%
- 8am–11am412 flights83.1%
- 11am–2pm241 flights84.5%
- 2pm–5pm247 flights82.9%
- 5pm–8pm165 flights80.0%
- 8pm–5am511 flights77.5%
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.5% of the time, against 77.5% for the overnight window. That is 9 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 511 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on ORD to PIT through the year
December is the weak month at 64.6% on time, against 88.9% 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. December was the busiest month here, with 184 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.5%. 10 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 51% of the 24,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 12%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 23,586 reported delay minutes.
51% 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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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.
Cancellations sit at 2.27% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.06%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.9% 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 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 runs 84.2% on time across 1,629 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,628 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.
What to do with this
Booking Republic on ORD to PIT
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 88.9% on time and December 64.6%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,590 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to PIT, every carrier
- Republic on PIT to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to PIT83.2%
- United Airlines on ORD to PIT75.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to PIT68.5%
- American Airlines on ORD to PIT55.0%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.