Route reliability record

RIC→ORD

Richmond to Chicago

Flights: 2,211
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 642 mi
Carriers: 4

This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,211 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 818 at 82.4% on time.

Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 82.4% on time across 818 flights.

On time

77.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,118 completed flights

Avg delay

95 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.66%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Republic

82.4% on time across 818 flights

These figures cover 2,211 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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 RIC to ORD

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 82.4% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 66.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 719 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on RIC to ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlinesthin sample	295	84.7%	58 min	2.03%	B
Republic Airways	818	82.4%	88 min	3.67%	B−
Envoy Air	379	80.1%	69 min	3.17%	B−
SkyWest Airlines	719	66.1%	115 min	4.59%	C−

SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.6% 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.

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 38 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am669 flights84.0%
8am–11am363 flights87.2%
11am–2pm394 flights78.1%
2pm–5pm133 flights57.8%
5pm–8pm469 flights73.9%
8pm–5am183 flights49.1%

Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 49.1% on time, against 87.2% for the 8am–11am 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 669 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 23 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, July worst

July is the worst month at 63.7% on time, 23 points below February, the best at 86.2%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 239 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.7%. 9 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 46,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
31%
Late-arriving aircraft
22%
Extreme weather
11%

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 17,000 of the 46,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 46,282 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 3.66%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.6% 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.

The 642 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.2% on time across 2,219 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,211 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 this route

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.66% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,118 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

RIC to ORD questions

How often is RIC to ORD delayed?

Roughly one flight in four arrive 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 2,211 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.

Which airline is most reliable on RIC to ORD?

Republic Airways leads at 82.4% on time across 818 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 66.1%, a gap of 16 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 RIC to ORD?

The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 49.1%, 38 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 July delays on RIC to ORD?

July is the weakest month at 63.7% on time, compared with 86.2% in February. Across the year that is 23 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. RIC to ORD and ORD to RIC are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures