Route reliability record
PSP→ORD
Palm Springs to Chicago
- Flights
- 787
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,651 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 787 PSP to ORD flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly PSP to ORD: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.5% of the time and Thursday flights 80.6%, against 75.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 759 completed flights
Avg delay
107 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
70.9% on time across 451 flights
These figures cover 787 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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
Which airline is most reliable on PSP to ORD
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 336 | 80.7% | 106 min | 1.79% | B |
| American Airlines | 451 | 70.9% | 107 min | 3.10% | C− |
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 39 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am215 flights82.4%
- 8am–11am41 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm386 flights78.0%
- 2pm–5pm123 flights48.7%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am22 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.5% of the time, against 48.7% for the afternoon window. That is 39 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 386 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 84.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 130 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.5%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 20,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 20,179 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.54%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 1,651 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.5% on time across 787 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 787 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 787 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 75.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 759 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PSP to ORD questions
How often is PSP 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 24.9% of the 787 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is PSP to ORD compared with the rest of the country?
75.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PSP to ORD?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 48.7%, 39 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 March delays on PSP to ORD?
March is the weakest month at 55.3% on time, compared with 84.0% in October. Across the year that is 29 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 PSP — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on PSP to ORD80.7%
- American Airlines on PSP to ORD70.9%
- PSP to SFO, a related route64.5%
- LGA to ORD, a related route67.3%
- PSP to DEN, a related route81.6%
- United Airlines on-time record80.7%
- American Airlines on-time record70.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PSP to ORD and ORD to PSP 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.