Route reliability record
SAV→ORD
Savannah to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,563
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 773 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,563 SAV to ORD flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly SAV to ORD: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.1%, against 75.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,531 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
69.2% on time across 735 flights
These figures cover 1,563 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 SAV to ORD
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 202 | 84.7% | 63 min | 2.97% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 167 | 83.4% | 59 min | 2.40% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 276 | 83.1% | 145 min | 1.81% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 183 | 72.8% | 100 min | 1.09% | C |
| United Airlines | 735 | 69.2% | 83 min | 0.95% | C+ |
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am65 flights84.4%
- 8am–11am468 flights87.8%
- 11am–2pm479 flights80.9%
- 2pm–5pm326 flights58.6%
- 5pm–8pm223 flights60.7%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.8% of the time, against 58.6% for the afternoon window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 479 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
July is the worst month at 57.8% on time, 25 points below May, the best at 83.2%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 204 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.9%. 14 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 33,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 31%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%Extreme weather
36% 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 12,000 minutes out of 33,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 33,241 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.54% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.51%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.9% 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 773 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 runs 77.0% on time across 1,561 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 1,563 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. May runs 83.2% on time and July 57.8%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,531 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAV to ORD questions
How often is SAV 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 24.4% of the 1,563 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is SAV to ORD compared with the rest of the country?
75.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAV to ORD?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 58.6%, 29 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 SAV to ORD?
July is the weakest month at 57.8% on time, compared with 83.2% in May. Across the year that is 25 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 SAV — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on SAV to ORD84.7%
- Republic Airways on SAV to ORD83.4%
- Envoy Air on SAV to ORD83.1%
- American Airlines on SAV to ORD72.8%
- United Airlines on SAV to ORD69.2%
- SAV to ATL, a related route88.8%
- LGA to ORD, a related route67.3%
- SAV to CLT, a related route85.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record84.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record83.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record83.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. SAV to ORD and ORD to SAV 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.