Carrier route record
YXORD→SYR
Republic Airways · Chicago to Syracuse
- Flights
- 754
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 34%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on ORD to SYR lands a B−, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five 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 754 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 686 at 78.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on ORD to SYR from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 730 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.05%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.7%
Every carrier on ORD to SYR, 2,189 flights
These figures cover 754 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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
Republic against every carrier on ORD to SYR
Republic flew 754 of the 2,189 flights on ORD to SYR, about 34% of it. Its 78.8% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 78.8% to American at 50.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 78.8% of the time; United Airlines manages 71.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 405 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 686 | 78.8% | 56 min | 2.77% | B |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 754 | 78.8% | 77 min | 3.05% | B− |
| United Airlines | 405 | 71.2% | 79 min | 1.23% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 241 | 66.8% | 84 min | 3.73% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 50.0% | 98 min | 0.97% | F+ |
Envoy leads United by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 23 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am122 flights88.4%
- 8am–11am181 flights79.8%
- 11am–2pm119 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm158 flights77.1%
- 5pm–8pm85 flights65.4%
- 8pm–5am89 flights76.8%
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 88.4% of the time, against 65.4% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 181 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on ORD to SYR through the year
December is the weak month at 65.2% on time, against 88.0% in April. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 121 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 72.4%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 12,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 14%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
53% 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 12,000 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 11,877 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 88.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.05%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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. 10.1% 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 607 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.7% on time across 752 flights, 6 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 754 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 Republic on ORD to SYR
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.05% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 730 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to SYR, every carrier
- Republic on SYR to ORD, the return leg
- Envoy Air on ORD to SYR78.8%
- United Airlines on ORD to SYR71.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to SYR66.8%
- American Airlines on ORD to SYR50.0%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.