Route reliability record
PIT→ORD
Pittsburgh to Chicago
- Flights
- 4,031
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 413 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 4,031 PIT to ORD flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,722 at 83.0% on time.
Best time to fly PIT to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.5% of the time and Thursday flights 80.4%, against 77.1% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 83.0% on time across 1,722 flights.
Key figures
On time
77.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,936 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.23%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
83.0% on time across 1,722 flights
These figures cover 4,031 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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 PIT to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 83.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 66.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 619 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,722 | 83.0% | 72 min | 1.68% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,317 | 76.1% | 103 min | 2.20% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 138 | 74.8% | 97 min | 2.17% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 235 | 68.4% | 109 min | 4.26% | C− |
| American Airlines | 619 | 66.4% | 120 min | 3.07% | C− |
American Airlines cancels 3.1% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on PIT to ORD
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Pittsburgh 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. PIT → ORDPittsburgh to Chicago | Republic Airways | 81.6% | 83.0% | 1.68% | 5am–8am, Thu | YX 3461 08:45 |
| 2. PIT → MDWPittsburgh to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 75.9% | 76.7% | 1.09% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. PIT → ORDPittsburgh to Chicago | United Airlines | 74.4% | 76.1% | 2.20% | 11am–2pm, Fri | UA 2180 14:11 |
| 4. PIT → ORDPittsburgh to Chicago | American Airlines | 64.4% | 66.4% | 3.07% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 36 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am741 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am971 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm550 flights83.9%
- 2pm–5pm869 flights73.2%
- 5pm–8pm742 flights60.3%
- 8pm–5am158 flights52.7%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.7% on time, against 88.5% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 971 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PIT 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 PIT to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 52.7%, a wide gap of 35.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.5%
- 8–11am84.6%
- 11am–2pm83.9%
- 2–5pm73.2%
- 5–8pm60.3%
- 8pm–5am52.7%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
August is the worst month at 66.0% on time, 20 points below February, the best at 85.5%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 396 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.1%, 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 88,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% 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 36,000 minutes out of 88,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 87,578 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 88.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.23% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.1% 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 413 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.6% on time across 4,029 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 4,031 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 85.5% on time and August 66.0%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,936 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PIT to ORD questions
How often is PIT to ORD delayed?
Roughly 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 22.9% of the 4,031 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 PIT to ORD?
Republic Airways leads at 83.0% on time across 1,722 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 66.4%, a gap of 17 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 PIT to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 52.7%, 36 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 August delays on PIT to ORD?
August is the weakest month at 66.0% on time, compared with 85.5% in February. Across the year that is 20 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 PIT — the return legseparate record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PIT to ORD83.0%
- United Airlines on PIT to ORD76.1%
- Envoy Air on PIT to ORD74.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on PIT to ORD68.4%
- American Airlines on PIT to ORD66.4%
- PIT to LGA, a related route79.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- PIT to ATL, a related route89.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record83.0%
- United Airlines on-time record76.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record74.8%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. PIT to ORD and ORD to PIT 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.