Route reliability record
ORD→PNS
Chicago to Pensacola
- Flights
- 756
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 794 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 rests on 756 ORD to PNS flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly ORD to PNS: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.5%, against 78.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 742 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.72%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
—
No carrier clears the floor
These figures cover 756 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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 PNS
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 21 | 90.0% | 101 min | 4.76% | A− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 84 | 82.9% | 68 min | 2.38% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 288 | 78.1% | 59 min | 2.78% | B |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 363 | 77.8% | 77 min | 0.55% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD to PNS
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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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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am489 flights78.6%
- 11am–2pm215 flights82.0%
- 2pm–5pm21 flights—
- 5pm–8pm31 flights53.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.3% on time, against 82.0% for the 11am–2pm 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 489 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to PNS 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 PNS, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 82.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 53.3%, a wide gap of 28.7 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am78.6%
- 11am–2pm82.0%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm53.3%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 90.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 114 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.3%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 13%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 10,849 reported delay minutes.
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations sit at 1.72% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 794 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 runs 76.5% on time across 756 flights, within 2 points 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. 756 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PNS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 756 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 78.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 742 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to PNS questions
How often is ORD to PNS delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.2% of the 756 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is ORD to PNS compared with the rest of the country?
78.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORD to PNS?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 82.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.3%, 29 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 April delays on ORD to PNS?
April is the weakest month at 69.9% on time, compared with 90.0% in September. Across the year that is 20 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
- PNS to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to PNS78.1%
- United Airlines on ORD to PNS77.8%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to PNS, a related route82.1%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record90.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record78.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ORD to PNS and PNS 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.