Route reliability record
ORD→ROC
Chicago to Rochester
- Flights
- 2,348
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 528 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 2,348 ORD to ROC flights, of which Republic Airways flew 660 at 79.9% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to ROC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.0%, against 73.3% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 79.9% on time across 660 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,283 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.39%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
79.9% on time across 660 flights
These figures cover 2,348 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 ROC
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 79.9% of the time; United Airlines manages 63.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 583 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 660 | 79.9% | 68 min | 1.97% | B |
| Envoy Air | 805 | 78.9% | 63 min | 2.48% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 300 | 63.5% | 81 min | 5.33% | D− |
| United Airlines | 583 | 63.1% | 71 min | 1.20% | D |
The spread between Republic and United is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD to ROC
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 Rochester
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → ROCChicago to Rochester | Republic Airways | 78.3% | 79.9% | 1.97% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → ROCChicago to Rochester | Envoy Air | 76.9% | 78.9% | 2.48% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → BUFChicago to Buffalo | United Airlines | 74.9% | 75.7% | 1.02% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. MDW → BUFChicago to Buffalo | Southwest Airlines | 73.3% | 74.4% | 1.45% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → BUFChicago to Buffalo | Republic Airways | 70.9% | 74.4% | 4.67% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 23 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am185 flights86.8%
- 8am–11am523 flights82.2%
- 11am–2pm280 flights85.8%
- 2pm–5pm542 flights64.4%
- 5pm–8pm537 flights64.1%
- 8pm–5am281 flights69.6%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.1% on time, against 86.8% 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 542 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to ROC 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 ROC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.1%, a wide gap of 22.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.8%
- 8–11am82.2%
- 11am–2pm85.8%
- 2–5pm64.4%
- 5–8pm64.1%
- 8pm–5am69.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
February is the weak month at 65.0% on time, against 82.2% 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. November was the busiest month here, with 225 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.7%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 43,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 43,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 42,654 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 86.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.39% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.38%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.0% 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.
The 528 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 75.0% on time across 2,367 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,348 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 ROC 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. May runs 82.2% on time and February 65.0%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of February before you think about anything else. 2,283 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to ROC questions
How often is ORD to ROC 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 26.7% of the 2,348 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 ROC?
Republic Airways leads at 79.9% on time across 660 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 63.1%, a gap of 17 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 ROC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.1%, 23 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 February delays on ORD to ROC?
February is the weakest month at 65.0% on time, compared with 82.2% in May. Across the year that is 17 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
- ROC to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to ROC79.9%
- Envoy Air on ORD to ROC78.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to ROC63.5%
- United Airlines on ORD to ROC63.1%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- BWI to ROC, a related route74.8%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record79.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record78.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record63.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ORD to ROC and ROC 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.