OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Chicago to Washington

589 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on ORD–IAD arrive on time 73% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate73%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay50 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled0.6%of scheduled flights

based on 1,989 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • United Airlines
    On-time73%
    Medianon time
    p9050 min
    Cancel0.6%
    Flights1,989

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline35%
  • Weather6%
  • Air traffic (NAS)23%
  • Late aircraft35%
  • Security0%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Airline.

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly ORD → IAD

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-01 .. 2025-12).

Best time of day

Mornings are the most reliable time of day to fly this route — 84% on time.

  • Mornings84% on time · p90 25 min · 1,323 flights
  • Middays80% on time · p90 30 min · 1,425 flights
  • Overnights74% on time · p90 50 min · 933 flights
  • Afternoons72% on time · p90 65 min · 516 flights
  • Evenings65% on time · p90 75 min · 1,136 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 73% to 78% on time.

  • Tuesdays78% on time · p90 40 min · 758 flights
  • Wednesdays78% on time · p90 50 min · 765 flights
  • Mondays77% on time · p90 40 min · 761 flights
  • Saturdays76% on time · p90 45 min · 746 flights
  • Thursdays75% on time · p90 45 min · 761 flights
  • Fridays75% on time · p90 45 min · 758 flights
  • Sundays73% on time · p90 55 min · 784 flights
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Methodology

A flight is on time when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule — the US DOT / BTS standard. Median and p90(the “1-in-10 bad day”) are read from the full arrival-delay distribution, never averaged across periods.

Figures cover a carrier’s own BTS-coded flights. Cells below ~200 flights are flagged as limited data. All numbers are pre-computed from public BTS On-Time Performance data.