Route reliability record
SLC→ORD
Salt Lake City to Chicago
- Flights
- 3,246
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,250 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 3,246 SLC to ORD flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,045 at 76.1% on time.
Best time to fly SLC to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.3%, against 74.9% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 76.1% on time across 1,045 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,175 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
76.1% on time across 1,045 flights
These figures cover 3,246 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 SLC to ORD
The three carriers here are closely matched: 2 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,045 | 76.1% | 124 min | 1.91% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,013 | 75.4% | 68 min | 1.09% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 79 | 74.0% | 103 min | 2.53% | C |
| United Airlines | 1,073 | 73.7% | 91 min | 1.40% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 36 | 61.1% | 80 min | 0.00% | D+ |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 76.1%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SLC 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 Salt Lake City 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. SLC → ORDSalt Lake City to Chicago | American Airlines | 74.6% | 76.1% | 1.91% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. SLC → ORDSalt Lake City to Chicago | Delta Air Lines | 74.6% | 75.4% | 1.09% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 2247 08:20 |
| 3. SLC → ORDSalt Lake City to Chicago | United Airlines | 72.7% | 73.7% | 1.40% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1502 08:30 |
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 26 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am624 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am578 flights82.4%
- 11am–2pm760 flights72.7%
- 2pm–5pm694 flights62.9%
- 5pm–8pm590 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.3% of the time, against 62.9% for the afternoon window. That is 26 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 760 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SLC 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 SLC to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.3% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 62.9%, a wide gap of 26.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.3%
- 8–11am82.4%
- 11am–2pm72.7%
- 2–5pm62.9%
- 5–8pm68.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% 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.
August is the worst month at 64.7% on time, 19 points below February, the best at 83.4%. 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 317 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.8%, a spread of 10 points.
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 75,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 31%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
40% 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 30,000 minutes out of 75,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 75,012 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.48% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.71%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.8% 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 1,250 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 68.6% on time across 3,245 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,246 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 83.4% on time and August 64.7%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,175 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SLC to ORD questions
How often is SLC 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 25.1% of the 3,246 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 SLC to ORD?
American Airlines leads at 76.1% on time across 1,045 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 73.7%, a gap of 2 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 SLC to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 62.9%, 26 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 SLC to ORD?
August is the weakest month at 64.7% on time, compared with 83.4% 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 SLC — the return legseparate record
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- American Airlines on SLC to ORD76.1%
- Delta Air Lines on SLC to ORD75.4%
- United Airlines on SLC to ORD73.7%
- SLC to DEN, a related route79.0%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- SLC to PHX, a related route83.5%
- American Airlines on-time record76.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record74.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. SLC to ORD and ORD to SLC 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.