PHL → ORD Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · PHLNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 07:54 UTC

Philadelphia airport profile →

Destination · ORDNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 07:51 UTC

Chicago airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

52/ 100Fair

Better than 18% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 14,166 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

77.2%

10,660 of 13,814

Cancellation rate

2.20%

311 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-8 min

Average 11.6 min

Severe delays

10.0%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

95 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

14,166

3 carriers

PHL → ORD arrives on time 77.2% of the time; the return trip, ORD → PHL, arrives on time 72.1% of the time, a 5.1-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.

PHL → ORD spends 36.7 minutes on the ground on a 678-mile trip: 19.9 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at PHL and 16.8 minutes from touchdown to gate at ORD.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

What stands out

The airline matters unusually much on this route, a wider carrier-to-carrier gap than 96% of 2,692 comparable routes.

United Airlines arrived on time 79.6% of the time, against 57.6% for Frontier Airlines, flying the exact same route.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 2,692 in the comparison.

Why PHL → ORD flights are cancelled

July 2023 – July 2026

PHL → ORD cancelled 311 of 14,166 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 46. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 75.2% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 61 scheduled flights.

Share of cancellations

Weather75.2%

Airline16.7%

Air traffic8.0%

Security0.0%

Of 311 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.

What each reason means

Extreme weather1 in 61

Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.

234 cancellations, 75.2% of the total.

The airline1 in 272

Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.

52 cancellations, 16.7% of the total.

The air traffic system1 in 567

Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.

25 cancellations, 8.0% of the total.

Security—

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.

311 coded cancellations were recorded on PHL → ORD; the section appears from 50.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

60 min late

against a median of 8 min early

Arrived an hour or more late10.0%

Typical delay when late95 min

Cancelled2.20%

Landed somewhere else0.29%

PHL → ORD has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 8 min early, but the worst tenth are 68 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 14,166 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at ORD after arriving from PHL.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, PHL → ORD arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	35%	Likely to miss
45 min	22%	High risk
60 min	16%	High risk
90 min	9.8%	Some risk
120 min	6.8%	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 2.20% of the time and diverts 0.29% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 13,814 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 60 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 14,166 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

PHL → ORD flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 87.2% of the time, against 60.7% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 26.5 percentage points.

By day and hour

On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (PHL).

Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 10.3 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 2.9 points.

On-time arrival rate for PHL to ORD by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM
7 AM–8 AM
8 AM–9 AM
9 AM–10 AM
10 AM–11 AM
11 AM–12 PM
12 PM–1 PM
1 PM–2 PM
2 PM–3 PM
3 PM–4 PM
4 PM–5 PM
5 PM–6 PM
6 PM–7 PM

On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time

50–59
60–69
70–79
80–89
90–99

Fewer than 120 flights, not scored

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.

No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 6 AM and after 7 PM (1,347 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.

View as tableHide table

On-time arrival rate (%) with flights beneath, by scheduled departure hour and weekday for PHL to ORD. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM	86.8% on time237 flights	89.6% on time224 flights	92.7% on time221 flights	96.1% on time238 flights	85.8% on time238 flights	88.8% on time229 flights	88.9% on time238 flights
7 AM–8 AM	87.5% on time128 flights	82.5% on time123 flights	88.1% on time121 flights	87.6% on time125 flights	86.2% on time125 flights	105 flights, too few to score	83.7% on time136 flights
8 AM–9 AM	118 flights, too few to score	114 flights, too few to score	118 flights, too few to score	117 flights, too few to score	77.3% on time123 flights	83.5% on time124 flights	105 flights, too few to score
9 AM–10 AM	108 flights, too few to score	116 flights, too few to score	116 flights, too few to score	110 flights, too few to score	114 flights, too few to score	98 flights, too few to score	109 flights, too few to score
10 AM–11 AM	86.8% on time250 flights	87.6% on time235 flights	90.8% on time240 flights	86.7% on time235 flights	80.9% on time250 flights	84.0% on time214 flights	81.7% on time236 flights
11 AM–12 PM	86 flights, too few to score	100 flights, too few to score	101 flights, too few to score	89 flights, too few to score	91 flights, too few to score	81 flights, too few to score	101 flights, too few to score
12 PM–1 PM	80.3% on time201 flights	87.4% on time185 flights	80.2% on time183 flights	83.1% on time185 flights	77.7% on time192 flights	76.3% on time152 flights	72.9% on time176 flights
1 PM–2 PM	80.6% on time134 flights	82.7% on time140 flights	80.4% on time139 flights	80.7% on time137 flights	78.4% on time134 flights	61 flights, too few to score	80.3% on time122 flights
2 PM–3 PM	55 flights, too few to score	62 flights, too few to score	64 flights, too few to score	71 flights, too few to score	54 flights, too few to score	34 flights, too few to score	57 flights, too few to score
3 PM–4 PM	72 flights, too few to score	84 flights, too few to score	85 flights, too few to score	73 flights, too few to score	72 flights, too few to score	77 flights, too few to score	71 flights, too few to score
4 PM–5 PM	66.4% on time125 flights	119 flights, too few to score	113 flights, too few to score	70.8% on time122 flights	66.7% on time124 flights	111 flights, too few to score	64.5% on time123 flights
5 PM–6 PM	67.1% on time165 flights	73.6% on time143 flights	68.0% on time149 flights	58.8% on time152 flights	57.6% on time173 flights	66.9% on time151 flights	60.4% on time155 flights
6 PM–7 PM	58.8% on time235 flights	69.0% on time190 flights	62.6% on time187 flights	55.3% on time220 flights	59.8% on time223 flights	63.5% on time155 flights	59.9% on time225 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM87.2%

9 AM–12 PM84.9%

12–3 PM79.5%

3–6 PM66.0%

6–9 PM60.7%

9 PM–5 AM67.0%

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Why PHL → ORD runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

Late-arriving aircraft41.3%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

Air traffic control28.4%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

The airline25.6%

crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control

Weather4.7%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Security0.1%

screening or terminal security incidents

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for PHL → ORD. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on PHL → ORD, at 41.3%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 87.2% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 60.7%.

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of PHL to ORD: 4.3 times the normal rate at PHL and 5.5 times at ORD. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: PHL 6.5% against 1.5%, ORD 6.5% 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 PHL and ORD in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	PHL	ORD
Cancelled in bad weather	6.5%	6.5%
Cancelled in normal hours	1.5%	1.2%
Arrived on time, bad weather	64.3%	55.7%
Arrived on time, normal hours	78.2%	77.1%
Departures in bad weather	32,038	104,455

United Airlines (3.2% cancelled against 6.2% for the other carriers at PHL) cancelled fewer departures from PHL in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse.

This route’s airlines in bad weather at PHL

All departures from PHL

Cancellation rates in bad weather at PHL for the airlines that fly PHL to ORD, against the other carriers at PHL in the same months
Airline	Bad-weather departures	Cancelled	Other carriers
United Airlines	1,391	3.2%below the others	6.2%
American Airlines	14,281	6.4%about level	6.8%
Frontier Airlines	3,603	6.5%about level	6.2%

These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from PHL and ORD, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from PHL on every route.

Weather source and limits. In full: PHL (airlines), ORD, 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.

Airlines on this route
Carrier	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Severe
American Airlines	8,521	76.6%	2.69%	-9 min	10.9%
United Airlines	5,170	79.6%	1.30%	-7 min	7.6%
Frontier Airlines	431	57.6%	3.48%	8 min	23.6%

American Airlines flew 60.3% of the 14,122 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 3.48% of its flights here against 1.30% for United Airlines.

United Airlines arrived on time 22.0 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.

Flights on this route

Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.

Flights on this route
Flight	Scheduled	Operations	On time
AA1652 American Airlines	6:00 AM	774	87.9%
UA308 United Airlines	5:00 PM	635	63.4%
AA2095 American Airlines	9:19 AM	611	82.5%

AA1652 (6:00 AM) arrived on time 87.9% of the time, 24.5 points more often than UA308 (5:00 PM) at 63.4%.

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon75.8%

Tue81.5%

Wed80.8%

Thu76.5%

Fri73.7%

Sat78.3%

Sun74.1%

Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 7.8 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 18.1 percentage points.

Reliability over time

July 2023 – July 2026

24

25

26

Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 73.2% against 77.4% in the 12 months before — declining by 4.2 percentage points.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 14,166 PHL → 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

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

PHL airport ORD airport Return direction ORD → PHL

PHL→ORD

Right now

Route reliability

What stands out

Why PHL → ORD flights are cancelled

Share of cancellations

What each reason means

When it goes wrong

Will your connection be tight enough?

Best time to fly

By day and hour

By departure window

By departure hour

Why PHL → ORD runs late

How this route holds up in bad weather

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

This route’s airlines in bad weather at PHL

Airlines on this route

Flights on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology