Carrier route record
YXORF→ORD
Republic Airways · Norfolk to Chicago
- Flights
- 448
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 23%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on ORF to ORD lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 448 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 443 at 74.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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.
Key figures
On time
80.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 436 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.56%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.7%
Every carrier on ORF to ORD, 1,959 flights
These figures cover 448 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on ORF to ORD
Republic flew 448 of the 1,959 flights on ORF to ORD, about 23% of it. Its 80.7% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 80.7% to American at 40.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 448 | 80.7% | 64 min | 1.56% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 279 | 80.7% | 75 min | 1.43% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 186 | 74.9% | 81 min | 7.53% | C− |
| Envoy Air | 443 | 74.6% | 74 min | 2.48% | C |
| United Airlines | 592 | 74.5% | 72 min | 1.52% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 11 | 40.0% | 79 min | 0.00% | F+ |
No carrier stands out. Envoy tops the table at 74.6%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am153 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm154 flights84.0%
- 2pm–5pm44 flights67.4%
- 5pm–8pm96 flights69.6%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.1% of the time, against 67.4% for the afternoon window. That is 21 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 154 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on ORF to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202579 flights80.8%
- Oct–Dec 2025151 flights73.8%
- Jan–Mar 202618 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202696 flights82.4%
- Jul–Sep 2026104 flights89.1%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. 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 80.7% on time across 448 flights.
Republic on ORF to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 89.1% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 73.8%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 112 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 91.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 67.3%, a spread of 25 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Republic on ORF to ORD runs when it is late
Republic on ORF to ORD often beats the schedule: 178 of 436 completed flights, 41%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 84 late arrivals split 33 under half an hour, 23 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 28 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early178 flights40.8%
- Within 15 min174 flights39.9%
- 15–29 min late33 flights7.6%
- 30–59 min late23 flights5.3%
- 1–2 hours late17 flights3.9%
- 2+ hours late11 flights2.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 436 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
12 of 69 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. In the other direction, 27 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for Republic on ORF to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 17 June 2026, 5 hours 26 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. Three of the five worst days fell in June 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 17 June 2026 | 5 hours 26 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 23 June 2026 | 4 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 July 2026 | 4 hours 41 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 August 2026 | 4 hours 19 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 25 June 2026 | 3 hours 51 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 5,335 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% 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 2,310 minutes out of 5,335, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,335 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 88.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.56% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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.
The return leg runs 81.4% on time across 447 flights, within half a point 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. 448 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: treat all of this as provisional. 448 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 436 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORF to ORD, every carrier
- Republic on ORD to ORF, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on ORF to ORD80.7%
- PSA Airlines on ORF to ORD74.9%
- Envoy Air on ORF to ORD74.6%
- United Airlines on ORF to ORD74.5%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.