Route reliability record
RSW→ORD
Fort Myers to Chicago
- Flights
- 3,238
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,120 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 3,238 RSW to ORD flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,615 at 80.0% on time.
Best time to fly RSW to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.0% of the time and Thursday flights 80.8%, against 76.4% 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
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,158 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.67%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
80.0% on time across 1,615 flights
These figures cover 3,238 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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 RSW to ORD
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,615 | 80.0% | 75 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,177 | 75.4% | 95 min | 1.70% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 36 | 71.4% | 97 min | 2.78% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 307 | 67.7% | 79 min | 5.86% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 56.0% | 78 min | 1.94% | D |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 80.0%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on RSW to ORD
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fort Myers 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. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. RSW → ORDFort Myers to Chicago | United Airlines | 79.4% | 80.0% | 0.80% | 5am–8am, Thu | UA 2494 12:30 |
| 2. RSW → ORDFort Myers to Chicago | American Airlines | 74.1% | 75.4% | 1.70% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. RSW → MDWFort Myers to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 72.0% | 73.0% | 1.37% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 48 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am507 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am511 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm891 flights81.8%
- 2pm–5pm789 flights66.4%
- 5pm–8pm453 flights58.5%
- 8pm–5am87 flights41.6%
Scale runs 35% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 41.6% on time, against 90.0% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 891 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RSW 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 RSW to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 41.6%, a wide gap of 48.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.0%
- 8–11am90.0%
- 11am–2pm81.8%
- 2–5pm66.4%
- 5–8pm58.5%
- 8pm–5am41.6%
best all US flightsScale 35% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
August is the worst month at 70.2% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 91.6%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 468 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.7%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 42% of the 62,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 62,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 62,255 reported delay minutes.
42% 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 26,000 minutes out of 62,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.67% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.80%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.5% 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 1,120 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 runs 75.6% on time across 3,244 flights, within about a point 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 3,238 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 91.6% on time and August 70.2%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,158 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RSW to ORD questions
How often is RSW 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 23.6% of the 3,238 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 RSW to ORD?
United Airlines leads at 80.0% on time across 1,615 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 75.4%, a gap of 5 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 RSW to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 41.6%, 48 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 August delays on RSW to ORD?
August is the weakest month at 70.2% on time, compared with 91.6% in September. Across the year that is 21 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 RSW — the return legseparate record
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on RSW to ORD80.0%
- American Airlines on RSW to ORD75.4%
- Spirit Airlines on RSW to ORD67.7%
- Southwest Airlines on RSW to ORD56.0%
- RSW to ATL, a related route85.4%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- RSW to BOS, a related route69.5%
- United Airlines on-time record80.0%
- American Airlines on-time record75.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record71.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. RSW to ORD and ORD to RSW 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.