ATL to ORD flight delays
Atlanta, GA (ATL) Chicago, IL (ORD) · 606 miles
584 flights · March 2025 – August 2026 · US Bureau of Transportation Statistics
68.44%
Arrived on time
Within 15 minutes of schedule
3.25%
Cancelled
Share of scheduled flights
99 min
When late, late by
Average across delayed arrivals
32 min
Delay per flight
Averaged over every flight flown
What the record says about this route
Cancellation, not delay, is the risk worth pricing here: 3.25% of scheduled flights never operated. A late flight still gets you there. A cancelled one leaves you rebooking, and on a route with few daily departures that can mean losing a day.
The two directions do not behave alike. ORD to ATL arrives on time 8.5 points more often than the outbound. Delay accumulates through the flying day, so whichever direction is scheduled later tends to carry the worse record — which is an argument for booking the morning departure if the choice exists.
This route does worse than its own airport. ATL as a whole runs 11.1 points more punctual than these flights, which points at something specific to the route — the time of day it is scheduled, or the aircraft that feed it — rather than the airport.
Flights from Atlanta to Chicago run late more often than the average route, though not severely.
Which airline should you fly on this route?
Over March 2025 – August 2026, Delta Air Lines arrived on time most often on ATL to ORD. United Airlines was late most often.
Every airline on ATL to ORD
Ranked by how many flights each one operated. A carrier with fewer than 100 flights in the period is listed but not graded.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Avg delay | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 233 | 72.12% | 3% | 74 min | D |
| United Airlines | 173 | 66.27% | 2.31% | 107 min | D |
| American Airlines | 90 | 68.24% | 4.44% | 90 min | — |
| Frontier Airlines | 60 | 60% | 0% | 169 min | — |
| Republic Airways | 28 | 70.83% | 14.29% | 62 min | — |
The return leg
ORD to ATL Chicago back to Atlanta 76.9% on time COther routes from Atlanta
Common questions
Are flights from Atlanta to Chicago usually delayed?
68.44% of flights on the ATL to ORD route arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, so roughly 3 in every ten arrived late. That is worse than the average route in this record.
Which airline is most on time from Atlanta to Chicago?
Delta Air Lines, at 72.12% on time across 233 flights. The least punctual on the route was United Airlines at 66.27%.
How often are ATL to ORD flights cancelled?
3.25% of scheduled flights did not operate — about 33 in every thousand. That is high enough that cancellation, not delay, is the risk worth planning around.
When ATL to ORD flights are late, how late are they?
About 99 minutes on average across the flights that arrived more than 15 minutes behind schedule.
What these figures do and do not tell you
Everything on this page is counted from the flights that actually operated on ATL to ORD during March 2025 – August 2026, as reported by the airlines to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. "On time" is the federal definition: arriving at the gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.
A route's record is a description of the past, not a forecast. Weather, air traffic control and the aircraft's earlier flights that day drive most delays, and none of them are predictable from a historical rate. What the record does tell you is whether this route runs late more often than others, and which carrier on it has the better history — which is the part you can actually act on when you book.
Cancellations are counted separately from delays because they are a different problem for a traveller: a late flight still gets you there. How the grade is calculated →