Route reliability record
SAT→ORD
San Antonio to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,004
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,041 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,004 SAT to ORD flights, of which United Airlines flew 889 at 78.9% on time.
Best time to fly SAT to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.7%, against 76.4% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.9% on time across 889 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,950 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.15%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
78.9% on time across 889 flights
These figures cover 2,004 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 SAT to ORD
The three 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 | 889 | 78.9% | 87 min | 1.12% | B |
| Envoy Air | 410 | 76.1% | 69 min | 3.17% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 101 | 74.7% | 54 min | 4.95% | C− |
| American Airlines | 500 | 74.2% | 87 min | 1.80% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 104 | 68.4% | 52 min | 5.77% | C− |
Envoy Air cancels 3.2% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on SAT 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 San Antonio to Chicago
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SAT → ORDSan Antonio to Chicago | United Airlines | 78.0% | 78.9% | 1.12% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 1332 06:40 |
| 2. SAT → ORDSan Antonio to Chicago | Envoy Air | 73.7% | 76.1% | 3.17% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. SAT → ORDSan Antonio to Chicago | American Airlines | 72.9% | 74.2% | 1.80% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 20 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am712 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am18 flights—
- 11am–2pm419 flights73.9%
- 2pm–5pm268 flights75.4%
- 5pm–8pm584 flights66.2%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.6% of the time, against 66.2% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 712 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAT 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 SAT to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.2%, a wide gap of 20.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.6%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm73.9%
- 2–5pm75.4%
- 5–8pm66.2%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 65.9%. February is the strongest month at 84.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 19 points. March was the busiest month here, with 179 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.4%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 37,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 36,500 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 86.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.15% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.
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 1,041 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 72.7% on time across 2,001 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,004 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. February runs 84.8% on time and March 65.9%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,950 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAT to ORD questions
How often is SAT 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 2,004 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SAT to ORD?
United Airlines leads at 78.9% on time across 889 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 74.2%, 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 SAT to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.2%, 20 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 SAT to ORD?
March is the weakest month at 65.9% on time, compared with 84.8% in February. Across the year that is 19 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 SAT — the return legseparate record
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SAT to ORD78.9%
- Envoy Air on SAT to ORD76.1%
- Republic Airways on SAT to ORD74.7%
- American Airlines on SAT to ORD74.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on SAT to ORD68.4%
- SAT to DFW, a related route79.4%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- SAT to DEN, a related route82.1%
- United Airlines on-time record78.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record76.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.7%
- 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. SAT to ORD and ORD to SAT 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.