Carrier route record
YXORD→RIC
Republic Airways · Chicago to Richmond
- Flights
- 827
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 37%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on ORD to RIC lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 827 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 379 at 78.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on ORD to RIC from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 806 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.42%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.2%
Every carrier on ORD to RIC, 2,219 flights
These figures cover 827 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 RIC
Republic flew 827 of the 2,219 flights on ORD to RIC, about 37% of it. Its 77.3% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 78.9% to United at 58.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 78.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 61.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 718 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 379 | 78.9% | 59 min | 2.11% | B |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 827 | 77.3% | 65 min | 2.42% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 718 | 61.9% | 96 min | 4.32% | D− |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 295 | 58.7% | 78 min | 2.03% | D |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.3% 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
Republic flight numbers on ORD to RIC
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am4 flights—
- 8am–11am305 flights75.7%
- 11am–2pm32 flights87.5%
- 2pm–5pm332 flights80.2%
- 5pm–8pm55 flights74.5%
- 8pm–5am99 flights69.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 87.5% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 69.7%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 332 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on ORD to RIC through the year
December is the weak month at 54.3% on time, against 91.9% in October. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.7%. 15 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 49% of the 12,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
49% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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. The split is drawn from 11,851 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.42% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.1% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 642 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.4% on time across 818 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 827 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 Republic on ORD to RIC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 827 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 77.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 806 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to RIC, every carrier
- Republic on RIC to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to RIC78.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to RIC61.9%
- United Airlines on ORD to RIC58.7%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.