Route profile
OMA→ORD
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Omaha to Chicago, 416 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 26% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 7,815 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
OMA → ORD arrives on time 78.4% of the time; the return trip, ORD → OMA, arrives on time 72.6% of the time, a 5.8-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
OMA → ORD spends 36.9 minutes on the ground on a 416-mile trip: 16.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at OMA and 20.5 minutes from touchdown to gate at ORD.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where OMA to ORD differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
OMA to ORD struggles most at 7 PM: 57.4% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 11.5 points behind the 68.9% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 10.4 points.
Wednesday is the day OMA to ORD slips furthest against routes of similar length, 79.1% on time where they average 82.1%, 3 points lower.
SkyWest Airlines’ flights on OMA to ORD arrive on time 75.8% of the time, 4.3 points below the 80.1% it manages on its routes of similar length. Against all other routes the gap is 5.5 points.
OMA to ORD against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 7 PM departures | 57.4% | routes of similar length | 68.9% | −11.5 pts | 324 here, 91,474 there |
| Weekday: Wednesday | 79.1% | routes of similar length | 82.1% | −3.0 pts | 1,070 here, 211,708 there |
| Airline: SkyWest Airlines | 75.8% | routes of similar length | 80.1% | −4.3 pts | 1,164 here, 143,599 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 416 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why OMA → ORD flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
OMA → ORD cancelled 164 of 7,815 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 48. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 75.6% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 63 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 164 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
124 cancellations, 75.6% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
23 cancellations, 14.0% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
17 cancellations, 10.4% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
164 coded cancellations were recorded on OMA → ORD; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
49 min late
against a median of 4 min early
Percentiles over 7,815 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at ORD after arriving from OMA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 40% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 21% | High risk |
| 60 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 8.6% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.7% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 2.10% of the time and diverts 0.20% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 7,635 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 49 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 7,815 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
OMA → ORD flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 87.1% of the time, against 68.0% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 19.1 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 87.9% on time from 425 flights
- 6 AM: 85.9% on time from 589 flights
- 7 AM: 85.1% on time from 595 flights
- 8 AM: 88.9% on time from 817 flights
- 9 AM: 83.3% on time from 150 flights
- 10 AM: 80.7% on time from 189 flights
- 11 AM: 82.9% on time from 1,134 flights
- 12 PM: 73.9% on time from 463 flights
- 1 PM: 77.0% on time from 208 flights
- 2 PM: 79.1% on time from 161 flights
- 3 PM: 74.9% on time from 1,187 flights
- 4 PM: too few flights to score
- 5 PM: 62.7% on time from 315 flights
- 6 PM: 71.1% on time from 1,115 flights
- 7 PM: 57.4% on time from 346 flights
- 8 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why OMA → ORD runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for OMA → ORD. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on OMA → ORD, at 39.0%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 87.1% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 68.0%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 3,479 | 79.9% | 1.58% | -3 min | 8.3% |
| Envoy Air | 1,577 | 76.7% | 2.66% | -6 min | 8.8% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,200 | 75.8% | 2.83% | -3 min | 9.7% |
| American Airlines | 821 | 77.3% | 2.07% | -4 min | 10.2% |
| Republic Airways | 730 | 80.5% | 2.05% | -7 min | 6.7% |
United Airlines flew 44.6% of the 7,807 flights listed. SkyWest Airlines cancelled 2.83% of its flights here against 1.58% for United Airlines.
Republic Airways arrived on time 4.7 percentage points more often than SkyWest Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA739 United Airlines | 3:27 PM | 781 | 72.1% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 5.6 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 77.4%
- Feb: 84.6%
- Mar: 76.1%
- Apr: 81.8%
- May: 77.4%
- Jun: 74.7%
- Jul: 71.4%
- Aug: 77.0%
- Sep: 81.6%
- Oct: 83.0%
- Nov: 82.0%
- Dec: 78.2%
July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 13.2 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 69.3% from 153 flights
- August 2023: 78.1% from 183 flights
- September 2023: 81.8% from 188 flights
- October 2023: 87.1% from 179 flights
- November 2023: 90.2% from 153 flights
- December 2023: 86.8% from 151 flights
- January 2024: 75.5% from 153 flights
- February 2024: 92.0% from 137 flights
- March 2024: 85.4% from 159 flights
- April 2024: 87.4% from 200 flights
- May 2024: 70.2% from 213 flights
- June 2024: 77.6% from 206 flights
- July 2024: 73.7% from 187 flights
- August 2024: 75.6% from 209 flights
- September 2024: 83.3% from 180 flights
- October 2024: 87.6% from 185 flights
- November 2024: 83.1% from 177 flights
- December 2024: 88.7% from 170 flights
- January 2025: 87.1% from 196 flights
- February 2025: 79.1% from 187 flights
- March 2025: 79.6% from 212 flights
- April 2025: 86.1% from 211 flights
- May 2025: 80.1% from 238 flights
- June 2025: 70.3% from 258 flights
- July 2025: 65.3% from 267 flights
- August 2025: 77.5% from 255 flights
- September 2025: 80.2% from 247 flights
- October 2025: 77.0% from 266 flights
- November 2025: 75.7% from 240 flights
- December 2025: 64.0% from 220 flights
- January 2026: 69.7% from 210 flights
- February 2026: 84.6% from 201 flights
- March 2026: 66.8% from 249 flights
- April 2026: 74.7% from 300 flights
- May 2026: 80.4% from 287 flights
- June 2026: 76.8% from 283 flights
- July 2026: 76.7% from 305 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.5% against 79.6% in the 12 months before — declining by 4.1 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 7,815 OMA → ORD flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed