Carrier route record
YXPIT→ORD
Republic Airways · Pittsburgh to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,629
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on PIT to ORD earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 1,629 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,290 at 77.9% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, Republic's PIT to ORD record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 66 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,600 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.66%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.6%
Every carrier on PIT to ORD, 3,950 flights
These figures cover 1,629 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 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.
Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on PIT to ORD
Republic flew 1,629 of the 3,950 flights on PIT to ORD, about 41% of it. Its 84.2% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 84.2% to SkyWest at 65.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 77.9% of the time; American Airlines manages 69.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 604 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,629 | 84.2% | 74 min | 1.66% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 190 | 78.3% | 105 min | 2.63% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,290 | 77.9% | 95 min | 1.86% | B |
| American Airlines | 604 | 69.9% | 113 min | 2.98% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 237 | 65.1% | 105 min | 2.11% | C |
United leads American by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on PIT to ORD
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 16 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am277 flights91.9%
- 8am–11am617 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm248 flights81.4%
- 2pm–5pm336 flights78.2%
- 5pm–8pm147 flights76.2%
- 8pm–5am4 flights—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.9% of the time, against 76.2% for the evening window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 617 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on PIT to ORD through the year
December is the weak month at 69.9% on time, against 92.3% 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. December was the busiest month here, with 184 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.7%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 48% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 48%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 8,964 minutes out of 19,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 18,532 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 91.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.66% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 runs 81.4% on time across 1,628 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,629 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.
What to do with this
Booking Republic on PIT to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 92.3% on time and December 69.9%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,600 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PIT to ORD, every carrier
- Republic on ORD to PIT, the return leg
- Envoy Air on PIT to ORD78.3%
- United Airlines on PIT to ORD77.9%
- American Airlines on PIT to ORD69.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on PIT to ORD65.1%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.