Carrier route record

OOTUL→ORD

SkyWest Airlines · Tulsa to Chicago

Flights: 1,057
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 49%
Carriers: 5

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.

SkyWest on TUL to ORD lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,057 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on TUL to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

78.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,037 completed flights

Avg delay

101 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.61%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.1%

Every carrier on TUL to ORD, 2,155 flights

These figures cover 1,057 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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

SkyWest against every carrier on TUL to ORD

SkyWest flew 1,057 of the 2,155 flights on TUL to ORD, about 49% of it. Its 78.4% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 84.8% to PSA at 56.8%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on TUL to ORD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlinesthin sample	46	84.8%	109 min	0.00%	B+
Republic Airwaysthin sample	63	81.0%	61 min	7.94%	B−
SkyWest Airlines (this page)	1,057	78.4%	101 min	1.61%	B
Envoy Air	836	75.9%	71 min	3.23%	B−
PSA Airlinesthin sample	153	56.8%	119 min	3.27%	D−

Flight by flight

SkyWest flight numbers on TUL to ORD

OO 529614:2078.8% · 318 flights

Departure window

When SkyWest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 43 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–8am205 flights79.0%
8am–11am396 flights83.5%
11am–2pm2 flights—
2pm–5pm420 flights76.0%
5pm–8pm34 flights40.6%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 30% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 40.6% on time, against 83.5% for the 8am–11am 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 420 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on TUL to ORD through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, July worst

July is the worst month at 59.7% on time, 33 points below February, the best at 92.6%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 122 flights.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.2%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why SkyWest 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 23,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
31%
Carrier
31%
National Airspace System
27%
Extreme weather
11%

Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 22,588 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 83.5% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.61% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.

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. 9.3% 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 585 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 73.5% on time across 1,057 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,057 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 SkyWest on TUL to ORD

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,057 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 78.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,037 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures