Route reliability record
XNA→ORD
Bentonville to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,736
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 522 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 1,736 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 83.8% of the time and Saturday flights 80.5%, against 75.9% 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
75.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,696 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.79%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
75.6% on time across 1,548 flights
These figures cover 1,736 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 52 | 80.0% | 60 min | 1.92% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 126 | 79.3% | 66 min | 2.38% | B |
| Envoy Air | 1,548 | 75.6% | 84 min | 1.74% | 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.
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 22 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–8am516 flights83.8%
- 8am–11am407 flights82.2%
- 11am–2pm78 flights71.1%
- 2pm–5pm364 flights71.8%
- 5pm–8pm368 flights62.1%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.1% on time, against 83.8% 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 516 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 63.5% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 84.3%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 206 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.5%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 9%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 34,000 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 34,069 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 83.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.79% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.52%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.3% 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 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. 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 76.4% on time across 1,733 flights, within half 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 1,736 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 July 63.5%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,696 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
XNA to ORD questions
How often is XNA 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 24.1% of the 1,736 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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?
75.9% 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 XNA to ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.1%, 22 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 XNA to ORD?
July is the weakest month at 63.5% on time, compared with 84.3% in September. Across the year that is 21 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 ORD79.3%
- Envoy Air on XNA to ORD75.6%
- XNA to DFW, a related route78.7%
- LGA to ORD, a related route67.3%
- XNA to CLT, a related route86.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record79.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record75.6%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.