Route reliability record
XNA→ORD
Bentonville to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,895
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 522 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,895 XNA to ORD flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly XNA to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.2% of the time and Saturday flights 80.5%, against 77.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,846 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
77.0% on time across 1,603 flights
These figures cover 1,895 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on XNA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 107 | 80.6% | 66 min | 2.80% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 175 | 79.6% | 71 min | 5.71% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 1,603 | 77.0% | 88 min | 1.68% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 9 | 55.6% | 163 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 131 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on XNA 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am578 flights86.2%
- 8am–11am408 flights82.8%
- 11am–2pm118 flights71.4%
- 2pm–5pm361 flights72.6%
- 5pm–8pm370 flights66.3%
- 8pm–5am60 flights58.2%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.2% on time, against 86.2% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 578 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter XNA 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 XNA to ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 58.2%, a wide gap of 28.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.2%
- 8–11am82.8%
- 11am–2pm71.4%
- 2–5pm72.6%
- 5–8pm66.3%
- 8pm–5am58.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 84.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 247 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.3%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 10%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 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 36,257 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 86.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.11% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.47%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.2% 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 522 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 runs 75.6% on time across 1,891 flights, within 2 points 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 1,895 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. September runs 84.3% on time and March 71.4%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,846 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
XNA to ORD questions
How often is XNA to ORD delayed?
Roughly 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 22.7% of the 1,895 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is XNA to ORD compared with the rest of the country?
77.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on XNA to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.2%, 28 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 XNA to ORD?
March is the weakest month at 71.4% on time, compared with 84.3% in September. Across the year that is 13 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 XNA — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on XNA to ORD80.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on XNA to ORD79.6%
- Envoy Air on XNA to ORD77.0%
- XNA to DFW, a related route79.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- XNA to CLT, a related route85.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record79.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record77.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. XNA to ORD and ORD to XNA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed XNA to ORD’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.