Route reliability record
ORD→RSW
Chicago to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 3,244
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,120 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,244 ORD to RSW flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,615 at 81.6% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to RSW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.5%, against 75.6% 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
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,177 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.70%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
81.6% on time across 1,615 flights
These figures cover 3,244 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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 RSW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.6% of the time; American Airlines manages 71.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,178 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,615 | 81.6% | 67 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 78.0% | 50 min | 2.91% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 36 | 77.1% | 75 min | 2.78% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,178 | 71.2% | 72 min | 1.78% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 312 | 59.2% | 81 min | 6.41% | D− |
United leads American by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD to RSW
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 Fort Myers
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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → RSWChicago to Fort Myers | United Airlines | 81.1% | 81.6% | 0.62% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 1740 07:05 |
| 2. MDW → RSWChicago to Fort Myers | Southwest Airlines | 74.2% | 75.3% | 1.46% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ORD → RSWChicago to Fort Myers | American Airlines | 69.9% | 71.2% | 1.78% | 5am–8am, 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 30 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am844 flights87.6%
- 8am–11am856 flights80.6%
- 11am–2pm519 flights69.7%
- 2pm–5pm429 flights72.8%
- 5pm–8pm517 flights57.8%
- 8pm–5am79 flights60.8%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.8% on time, against 87.6% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 856 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to RSW 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 RSW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 57.8%, a wide gap of 29.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.6%
- 8–11am80.6%
- 11am–2pm69.7%
- 2–5pm72.8%
- 5–8pm57.8%
- 8pm–5am60.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 91.7% 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 469 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 71.2%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 55,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 55,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 54,907 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 87.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.70% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.37%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.7% 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 1,120 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 76.4% on time across 3,238 flights, within about a point 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 3,244 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 RSW 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 91.7% on time and March 67.4%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 3,177 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to RSW questions
How often is ORD to RSW 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 24.4% of the 3,244 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 RSW?
United Airlines leads at 81.6% on time across 1,615 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 71.2%, a gap of 10 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 RSW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.8%, 30 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 RSW?
March is the weakest month at 67.4% on time, compared with 91.7% in September. Across the year that is 24 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
- RSW to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- United Airlines on ORD to RSW81.6%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to RSW78.0%
- American Airlines on ORD to RSW71.2%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to RSW59.2%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to RSW, a related route76.8%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- United Airlines on-time record81.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.1%
- 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 RSW and RSW 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.