Route reliability record
ORD→SAV
Chicago to Savannah
- Flights
- 1,561
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 773 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,561 ORD to SAV flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly ORD to SAV: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.2%, against 77.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,532 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.67%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
79.9% on time across 735 flights
These figures cover 1,561 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to SAV
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 275 | 82.6% | 65 min | 1.82% | B |
| United Airlines | 735 | 79.9% | 78 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 182 | 72.6% | 82 min | 1.10% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 168 | 69.4% | 71 min | 4.17% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 201 | 68.2% | 89 min | 2.99% | C |
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 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am157 flights87.8%
- 8am–11am402 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm420 flights75.9%
- 2pm–5pm141 flights63.3%
- 5pm–8pm395 flights70.9%
- 8pm–5am46 flights84.1%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.8% of the time, against 63.3% for the afternoon window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 420 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 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.
January is the weak month at 71.1% on time, against 85.5% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 205 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.4%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 27,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 27,424 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 87.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.67% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.2% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 773 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 75.6% on time across 1,563 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 1,561 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 SAV 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. October runs 85.5% on time and January 71.1%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,532 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to SAV questions
How often is ORD to SAV delayed?
Roughly 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 23.0% of the 1,561 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is ORD to SAV compared with the rest of the country?
77.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORD to SAV?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 63.3%, 25 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 January delays on ORD to SAV?
January is the weakest month at 71.1% on time, compared with 85.5% in October. Across the year that is 14 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
- SAV to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to SAV82.6%
- United Airlines on ORD to SAV79.9%
- American Airlines on ORD to SAV72.6%
- Republic Airways on ORD to SAV69.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to SAV68.2%
- ORD to LGA, a related route67.3%
- ATL to SAV, a related route83.5%
- ORD to BOS, a related route67.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record82.6%
- United Airlines on-time record79.9%
- American Airlines on-time record72.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. ORD to SAV and SAV 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.