Route reliability record
ORD→TVC
Chicago to Traverse City
- Flights
- 2,863
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 224 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.7% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,863 ORD to TVC flights, of which Republic Airways flew 533 at 70.9% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to TVC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 76.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 71.0%, against 67.4% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 70.9% on time across 533 flights.
Key figures
On time
67.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,724 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
70.9% on time across 533 flights
These figures cover 2,863 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.3% 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 TVC
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 70.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 64.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,209 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 308 | 76.7% | 64 min | 1.95% | B |
| Republic Airways | 533 | 70.9% | 78 min | 5.44% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 354 | 67.8% | 105 min | 8.76% | C− |
| United Airlines | 459 | 64.7% | 87 min | 1.53% | D |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,209 | 64.4% | 99 min | 4.96% | D− |
Republic Airways cancels 5.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 Traverse City
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → TVCChicago to Traverse City | Republic Airways | 67.0% | 70.9% | 5.44% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 2. ORD → TVCChicago to Traverse City | United Airlines | 63.7% | 64.7% | 1.53% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 3. ORD → TVCChicago to Traverse City | SkyWest Airlines | 61.2% | 64.4% | 4.96% | 8am–11am, 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 17 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am26 flights—
- 8am–11am558 flights76.9%
- 11am–2pm541 flights74.7%
- 2pm–5pm595 flights59.9%
- 5pm–8pm444 flights63.6%
- 8pm–5am699 flights62.4%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 76.9% of the time, against 59.9% for the afternoon window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 699 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to TVC 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 TVC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 76.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 59.9%, a wide gap of 17.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am76.9%
- 11am–2pm74.7%
- 2–5pm59.9%
- 5–8pm63.6%
- 8pm–5am62.4%
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 34 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.
December is the weak month at 45.0% on time, against 78.5% in May. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 368 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 71.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.3%, 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 81,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 18%Extreme weather
- 13%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 18% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 81,020 reported delay minutes.
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 81,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 to one.
Cancellations run at 4.65%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
14.3% 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 224 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.3% on time across 2,863 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,863 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 TVC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.65% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,724 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to TVC questions
How often is ORD to TVC delayed?
About 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 32.6% of the 2,863 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to TVC?
Republic Airways leads at 70.9% on time across 533 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 64.4%, a gap of 7 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 TVC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 76.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 59.9%, 17 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 December delays on ORD to TVC?
December is the weakest month at 45.0% on time, compared with 78.5% in May. Across the year that is 34 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
- TVC to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to TVC76.7%
- Republic Airways on ORD to TVC70.9%
- PSA Airlines on ORD to TVC67.8%
- United Airlines on ORD to TVC64.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to TVC64.4%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DTW to TVC, a related route74.1%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record76.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record70.9%
- PSA Airlines on-time record67.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to TVC and TVC 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.