Carrier route record

YXRIC→ORD

Republic Airways · Richmond to Chicago

Flights: 818
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 37%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.

Republic on RIC to ORD 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, more than four flights in five 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 818 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 379 at 80.1% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, Republic's RIC to ORD record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 783 completed flights

Avg delay

88 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.67%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.1%

Every carrier on RIC to ORD, 2,211 flights

These figures cover 818 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 RIC to ORD

Republic flew 818 of the 2,211 flights on RIC to ORD, about 37% of it. Its 82.4% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.7% to SkyWest at 66.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 80.1% 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 (this page)	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

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 15 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am88 flights89.7%
8am–11am307 flights88.5%
11am–2pm92 flights85.6%
2pm–5pm32 flights—
5pm–8pm296 flights74.3%
8pm–5am3 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.7% of the time, against 74.3% for the evening window. That is 15 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 307 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on RIC to ORD through the year

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

July is the worst month at 58.8% on time, 34 points below February, the best at 92.6%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.9%. 11 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 50% of the 12,000 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.

National Airspace System
50%
Late-arriving aircraft
33%
Carrier
12%
Extreme weather
4%

50% 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 6,124 minutes out of 12,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 12,138 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 89.7% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.67%, 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 costs

7.2% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.

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 77.3% on time across 827 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 818 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.

What to do with this

Booking Republic on RIC to ORD

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.67% 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. 783 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures