Route reliability record
PVD→ORD
Providence to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,727
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 849 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,727 PVD to ORD flights, of which American Airlines flew 432 at 78.9% on time.
Best time to fly PVD to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 78.5%, against 74.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,652 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.05%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.9% on time across 432 flights
These figures cover 1,727 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 PVD to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 78.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 69.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 754 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 328 | 81.4% | 100 min | 5.49% | B− |
| American Airlines | 432 | 78.9% | 116 min | 3.47% | B− |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 119 | 75.7% | 42 min | 2.52% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 754 | 69.8% | 97 min | 3.71% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 94 | 65.5% | 61 min | 6.38% | C− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 3.7% 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Providence 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PVD → MDWProvidence to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 81.9% | 83.1% | 1.41% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. PVD → ORDProvidence to Chicago | American Airlines | 76.2% | 78.9% | 3.47% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. BOS → ORDBoston to Chicago | United Airlines | 73.2% | 74.5% | 1.79% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1414 06:00 |
| 4. BOS → ORDBoston to Chicago | Envoy Air | 73.1% | 75.7% | 3.40% | 11am–2pm, Mon | — |
| 5. BOS → ORDBoston to Chicago | American Airlines | 71.2% | 73.3% | 2.86% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 25 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am628 flights84.7%
- 8am–11am101 flights76.3%
- 11am–2pm291 flights77.9%
- 2pm–5pm273 flights68.8%
- 5pm–8pm434 flights60.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.0% on time, against 84.7% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 628 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PVD 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 PVD to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.0%, a wide gap of 24.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.7%
- 8–11am76.3%
- 11am–2pm77.9%
- 2–5pm68.8%
- 5–8pm60.0%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
December is the weak month at 65.1% on time, against 84.8% in July. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 181 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.8%, a spread of 11 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 40,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 40,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 40,146 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.05%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
10.7% 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.
The 849 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 69.3% on time across 1,727 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,727 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 delay figures matter less here than the 4.05% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,652 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PVD to ORD questions
How often is PVD 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 25.5% of the 1,727 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 PVD to ORD?
American Airlines leads at 78.9% on time across 432 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 69.8%, a gap of 9 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 PVD to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.0%, 25 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 December delays on PVD to ORD?
December is the weakest month at 65.1% on time, compared with 84.8% in July. 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 PVD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on PVD to ORD81.4%
- American Airlines on PVD to ORD78.9%
- United Airlines on PVD to ORD75.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on PVD to ORD69.8%
- PVD to DCA, a related route71.0%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- PVD to BWI, a related route86.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.4%
- American Airlines on-time record78.9%
- United Airlines on-time record75.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PVD to ORD and ORD to PVD 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.