Route profile
ORD→MCI
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Chicago to Kansas City, 403 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 19% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,960 flights. How this is calculated
ORD → MCI arrives on time 74.3% of the time; the return trip, MCI → ORD, arrives on time 79.2% of the time, a 4.9-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
ORD → MCI spends 32.4 minutes on the ground on a 403-mile trip: 25.0 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at ORD and 7.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at MCI.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why ORD → MCI flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
ORD → MCI cancelled 196 of 10,960 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 56. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 72.4% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 77 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 196 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.
142 cancellations, 72.4% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
35 cancellations, 17.9% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
19 cancellations, 9.7% 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.
196 coded cancellations were recorded on ORD → MCI; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
59 min late
against a median of 3 min early
ORD → MCI has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 3 min early, but the worst tenth are 62 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 10,960 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at MCI after arriving from ORD.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 43% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 25% | High risk |
| 60 min | 17% | High risk |
| 90 min | 9.7% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 6.1% | 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 1.79% of the time and diverts 0.15% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 10,748 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 59 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,960 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
ORD → MCI flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 83.9% of the time, against 63.6% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 20.3 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 81.7% on time from 357 flights
- 7 AM: 88.9% on time from 566 flights
- 8 AM: 82.4% on time from 1,395 flights
- 9 AM: 78.5% on time from 198 flights
- 10 AM: 79.8% on time from 514 flights
- 11 AM: 81.2% on time from 155 flights
- 12 PM: 81.4% on time from 1,165 flights
- 1 PM: 81.8% on time from 560 flights
- 2 PM: 69.5% on time from 433 flights
- 3 PM: 74.1% on time from 1,339 flights
- 4 PM: 75.9% on time from 511 flights
- 5 PM: 65.0% on time from 571 flights
- 6 PM: 69.9% on time from 622 flights
- 7 PM: 56.9% on time from 403 flights
- 8 PM: 62.8% on time from 1,512 flights
- 9 PM: 67.0% on time from 370 flights
- 10 PM: 65.0% on time from 261 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why ORD → MCI runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow 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 ORD → MCI. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on ORD → MCI, at 44.3%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 83.9% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 63.6%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 5.5 times the normal rate at ORD against 2.5 times at MCI. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: ORD 6.5% against 1.2%, MCI 3.0% against 1.2%. Flights that did leave ORD in bad weather arrived on time 55.7% of the time, against 77.1% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | ORD | MCI |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 6.5% | 3.0% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.2% | 1.2% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 55.7% | 74.7% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 77.1% | 81.9% |
| Departures in bad weather | 104,455 | 16,876 |
Of the carriers on this route, United Airlines (3.5% cancelled against 7.4% for the other carriers at ORD) cancelled the fewest departures from ORD in bad weather and SkyWest Airlines (10.7% cancelled against 5.8% for the other carriers at ORD) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at ORD
All departures from ORD| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 31,269 | 3.5%below the others | 7.4% |
| American Airlines | 17,789 | 5.4%below the others | 6.7% |
| Republic Airways | 9,471 | 8.1%above the others | 6.5% |
| Envoy Air | 14,228 | 8.6%above the others | 6.9% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 21,044 | 10.7%above the others | 5.8% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from ORD and MCI, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from ORD on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: ORD (airlines), MCI, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
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 | 4,293 | 75.3% | 1.23% | -4 min | 9.3% |
| Envoy Air | 1,960 | 75.8% | 2.24% | -4 min | 7.8% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,732 | 72.4% | 2.71% | -1 min | 12.3% |
| American Airlines | 1,604 | 65.7% | 1.50% | 2 min | 15.0% |
| Republic Airways | 1,331 | 82.5% | 2.03% | -9 min | 5.9% |
United Airlines flew 39.3% of the 10,920 flights listed. SkyWest Airlines cancelled 2.71% of its flights here against 1.23% for United Airlines.
Republic Airways arrived on time 16.8 percentage points more often than American 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA561 United Airlines | 12:45 PM | 688 | 81.2% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 6.4 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 70.7%
- Feb: 78.9%
- Mar: 72.7%
- Apr: 74.8%
- May: 75.3%
- Jun: 68.9%
- Jul: 65.9%
- Aug: 74.5%
- Sep: 81.8%
- Oct: 80.0%
- Nov: 80.0%
- Dec: 73.0%
July is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 15.9 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 61.9% from 253 flights
- August 2023: 77.1% from 276 flights
- September 2023: 79.4% from 256 flights
- October 2023: 81.6% from 201 flights
- November 2023: 88.9% from 189 flights
- December 2023: 88.2% from 203 flights
- January 2024: 64.7% from 237 flights
- February 2024: 90.0% from 209 flights
- March 2024: 75.4% from 187 flights
- April 2024: 80.6% from 252 flights
- May 2024: 63.7% from 296 flights
- June 2024: 70.6% from 300 flights
- July 2024: 65.3% from 301 flights
- August 2024: 70.0% from 285 flights
- September 2024: 84.6% from 272 flights
- October 2024: 82.9% from 323 flights
- November 2024: 84.1% from 302 flights
- December 2024: 74.4% from 255 flights
- January 2025: 83.7% from 263 flights
- February 2025: 75.8% from 246 flights
- March 2025: 77.5% from 282 flights
- April 2025: 79.6% from 330 flights
- May 2025: 82.3% from 358 flights
- June 2025: 63.7% from 345 flights
- July 2025: 59.9% from 342 flights
- August 2025: 76.4% from 311 flights
- September 2025: 81.3% from 301 flights
- October 2025: 76.3% from 350 flights
- November 2025: 71.2% from 348 flights
- December 2025: 61.6% from 314 flights
- January 2026: 63.7% from 279 flights
- February 2026: 74.1% from 334 flights
- March 2026: 67.3% from 376 flights
- April 2026: 67.1% from 406 flights
- May 2026: 77.6% from 410 flights
- June 2026: 72.5% from 375 flights
- July 2026: 74.3% from 393 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 72.0% against 76.3% in the 12 months before — declining by 4.3 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,960 ORD → MCI 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