Route reliability record
PHX→ORD
Phoenix to Chicago
- Flights
- 5,632
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,440 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 5,632 PHX to ORD flights, of which American Airlines flew 3,063 at 78.9% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.3%, against 76.2% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.9% on time across 3,063 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,500 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.56%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.9% on time across 3,063 flights
These figures cover 5,632 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 PHX to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 78.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 59.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 397 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 3,063 | 78.9% | 78 min | 1.99% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,990 | 75.7% | 89 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 182 | 70.5% | 104 min | 3.85% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 397 | 59.9% | 66 min | 1.26% | D |
The spread between American and Southwest is 19 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 19 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix to Chicago
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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHX → ORDPhoenix to Chicago | American Airlines | 77.3% | 78.9% | 1.99% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. PHX → ORDPhoenix to Chicago | United Airlines | 75.1% | 75.7% | 0.75% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 3. PHX → MDWPhoenix to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 70.1% | 70.9% | 1.06% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. PHX → ORDPhoenix to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 59.1% | 59.9% | 1.26% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 22 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,089 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am1,107 flights77.3%
- 11am–2pm1,072 flights72.6%
- 2pm–5pm1,132 flights67.9%
- 5pm–8pm725 flights69.1%
- 8pm–5am507 flights80.4%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.8% of the time, against 67.9% for the afternoon window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,132 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX to ORD 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 PHX to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 67.9%, a wide gap of 21.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.8%
- 8–11am77.3%
- 11am–2pm72.6%
- 2–5pm67.9%
- 5–8pm69.1%
- 8pm–5am80.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
June is the worst month at 68.2% on time, 17 points below February, the best at 84.7%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 586 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.2%, a spread of 8 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 107,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% 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 41,000 minutes out of 107,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 106,656 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 89.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.56% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.78%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,440 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.4% on time across 5,631 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,632 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 ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 84.7% on time and June 68.2%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 5,500 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to ORD questions
How often is PHX to ORD delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.8% of the 5,632 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to ORD?
American Airlines leads at 78.9% on time across 3,063 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 59.9%, a gap of 19 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 PHX to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.9%, 22 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 June delays on PHX to ORD?
June is the weakest month at 68.2% on time, compared with 84.7% in February. Across the year that is 17 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
- ORD to PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHX to ORD78.9%
- United Airlines on PHX to ORD75.7%
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to ORD70.5%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to ORD59.9%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- American Airlines on-time record78.9%
- United Airlines on-time record75.7%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record70.5%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PHX to ORD and ORD to PHX 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.