Carrier route record

YXORF→ORD

Republic Airways · Norfolk to Chicago

Flights: 430
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 23%
Carriers: 6

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

Republic on ORF to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 430 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 397 at 76.7% on time.

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

On time

75.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 414 completed flights

Avg delay

62 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.02%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.9%

Every carrier on ORF to ORD, 1,865 flights

These figures cover 430 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

Republic against every carrier on ORF to ORD

Republic flew 430 of the 1,865 flights on ORF to ORD, about 23% of it. Its 75.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 85.8% to American at 50.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on ORF to ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	156	85.8%	88 min	0.64%	A+
Envoy Air	397	76.7%	66 min	2.02%	B
Republic Airways (this page)	430	75.8%	62 min	3.02%	B−
PSA Airlinesthin sample	186	74.9%	81 min	7.53%	C−
United Airlines	690	73.7%	71 min	1.74%	C
American Airlinesthin sample	6	50.0%	29 min	0.00%	F+

No carrier stands out. Envoy tops the table at 76.7%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

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 18 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am137 flights83.5%
8am–11am—
11am–2pm103 flights83.3%
2pm–5pm44 flights67.4%
5pm–8pm145 flights65.4%
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.5% of the time, against 65.4% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 145 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on ORF to ORD through the year

Jul–Sep 2025165 flights73.2%
Oct–Dec 2025151 flights73.8%
Jan–Mar 202618 flights—
Apr–Jun 202696 flights82.4%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. 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 75.8% on time across 430 flights.

Quarter by quarter Republic on ORF to ORD held fairly steady: 73.2% in Jul–Sep 2025, 73.8% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 82.4% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 9 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Saturday the weakest at 63.3%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Republic runs late on this route

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 6,227 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
36%
Late-arriving aircraft
31%
Carrier
20%
Extreme weather
12%

Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 6,227 reported delay minutes.

36% 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 2,269 minutes out of 6,227, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 3.02%, 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

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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 717 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 77.4% on time across 428 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 430 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 ORF to ORD

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.02% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 414 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