Carrier route record

MQORD→SAT

Envoy Air · Chicago to San Antonio

Flights: 352
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 18%
Carriers: 5

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Envoy Air.

Envoy on ORD to SAT lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 352 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 833 at 75.6% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Envoy on ORD to SAT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

76.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 340 completed flights

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.56%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.5%

Every carrier on ORD to SAT, 1,966 flights

These figures cover 352 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

Envoy against every carrier on ORD to SAT

Envoy flew 352 of the 1,966 flights on ORD to SAT, about 18% of it. Its 76.8% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 82.3% to American at 68.7%. 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 75.6% of the time; American Airlines manages 68.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 548 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on ORD to SAT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	101	82.3%	62 min	3.96%	B−
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	132	80.5%	64 min	3.03%	B−
Envoy Air (this page)thin sample	352	76.8%	57 min	2.56%	B
United Airlines	833	75.6%	74 min	1.08%	B
American Airlines	548	68.7%	74 min	2.55%	C

United leads American by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

Departure window

When Envoy runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 10 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am108 flights79.2%
11am–2pm60 flights77.2%
2pm–5pm85 flights81.0%
5pm–8pm1 flights—
8pm–5am98 flights70.7%

Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 81.0% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 70.7%. 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 108 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Envoy on ORD to SAT through the year

Jan–Mar 2026168 flights74.7%
Apr–Jun 2026184 flights78.7%

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 76.8% on time across 352 flights.

Split by quarter, Envoy on ORD to SAT logged 168 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 184 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 76.8% annual figure is the one to use.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 60.0%. 22 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Envoy runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 4,534 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
45%
National Airspace System
38%
Carrier
9%
Extreme weather
8%

45% 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 4,534 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 4,534 reported delay minutes.

38% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,701 minutes out of 4,534, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 2.56%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 1,041 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 runs 76.6% on time across 352 flights, within half a point 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. 352 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 Envoy on ORD to SAT

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 352 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 76.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 340 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures