Route reliability record
ORD→SBN
Chicago to South Bend
- Flights
- 2,789
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 84 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,789 ORD to SBN flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
Best time to fly ORD to SBN: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 68.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 68.5%, against 63.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 14 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 142 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
63.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,663 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.37%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
63.0% on time across 2,777 flights
These figures cover 2,789 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.3% 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 SBN
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 10 | 90.0% | 81 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,777 | 63.0% | 87 min | 4.39% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD to SBN
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to South Bend
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 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → AZOChicago to Kalamazoo | Envoy Air | 73.3% | 76.6% | 4.33% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 2. ORD → SBNChicago to South Bend | SkyWest Airlines | 60.2% | 63.0% | 4.39% | 11am–2pm, Tue (route) | OO 5274 21:20 |
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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am15 flights—
- 8am–11am686 flights67.5%
- 11am–2pm289 flights68.0%
- 2pm–5pm719 flights62.5%
- 5pm–8pm697 flights56.1%
- 8pm–5am383 flights64.2%
Scale runs 50% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.1% on time, against 68.0% for the 11am–2pm 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 719 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to SBN 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 SBN, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 68.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 56.1%, a wide gap of 11.9 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am67.5%
- 11am–2pm68.0%
- 2–5pm62.5%
- 5–8pm56.1%
- 8pm–5am64.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 78.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 253 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 68.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.4%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 86,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 86,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 85,655 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.37%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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 actually costs
16.3% 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.
At 84 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 65.5% on time across 2,790 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 2,789 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 SBN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.37% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,663 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to SBN questions
How often is ORD to SBN delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 36.9% of the 2,789 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is ORD to SBN compared with the rest of the country?
63.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 14 points against it. That is worth a D− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORD to SBN?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 68.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.1%, 12 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 April delays on ORD to SBN?
April is the weakest month at 51.8% on time, compared with 78.4% in September. Across the year that is 27 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
- SBN to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to SBN, a related route74.5%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record100.0%
- United Airlines on-time record90.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record63.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to SBN and SBN 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.