Carrier route record
YXSYR→ORD
Republic Airways · Syracuse to Chicago
- Flights
- 752
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 34%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on SYR to ORD carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 752 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 686 at 79.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Republic on SYR to ORD runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 719 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.86%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.0%
Every carrier on SYR to ORD, 2,187 flights
These figures cover 752 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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
Republic against every carrier on SYR to ORD
Republic flew 752 of the 2,187 flights on SYR to ORD, about 34% of it. Its 72.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 79.2% to SkyWest at 59.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 79.2% | 103 min | 1.94% | B |
| Envoy Air | 686 | 79.1% | 82 min | 2.62% | B |
| United Airlines | 405 | 75.3% | 60 min | 1.73% | B |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 752 | 72.7% | 79 min | 3.86% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 241 | 59.1% | 76 min | 4.15% | D− |
No carrier stands out. Envoy tops the table at 79.1%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 27 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am141 flights73.1%
- 8am–11am132 flights78.1%
- 11am–2pm188 flights75.4%
- 2pm–5pm68 flights89.2%
- 5pm–8pm201 flights62.6%
- 8pm–5am22 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.6% on time, against 89.2% for the 2pm–5pm 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 201 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on SYR to ORD through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 88.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 121 flights.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 75.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.7%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
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 16,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 15,510 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.86%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 607 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 78.8% on time across 754 flights, 6 points above 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 752 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 SYR to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.86% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 2pm–5pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 719 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SYR to ORD, every carrier
- Republic on ORD to SYR, the return leg
- American Airlines on SYR to ORD79.2%
- Envoy Air on SYR to ORD79.1%
- United Airlines on SYR to ORD75.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on SYR to ORD59.1%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.