ORD to STL flight delays
Chicago, IL (ORD) St. Louis, MO (STL) · 258 miles
303 flights · March 2025 – August 2026 · US Bureau of Transportation Statistics
75.43%
Arrived on time
Within 15 minutes of schedule
2.64%
Cancelled
Share of scheduled flights
73 min
When late, late by
Average across delayed arrivals
19 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: 2.64% 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. STL to ORD arrives on time 5.1 points less 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 is a thin route — 303 flights across the whole period. On a route this infrequent a cancellation is far more costly than the rate suggests, because the next departure may not be the same day.
Flights from Chicago to St. Louis run late more often than the average route, though not severely.
Every airline on ORD to STL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 90 | 69.66% | 1.11% | 99 min | — |
| Envoy Air | 88 | 81.4% | 2.27% | 42 min | — |
| SkyWest Airlines | 62 | 76.67% | 0% | 52 min | — |
| American Airlines | 33 | 75.86% | 12.12% | 90 min | — |
| Republic Airways | 30 | 72.41% | 3.33% | 69 min | — |
The return leg
STL to ORD St. Louis back to Chicago 70.34% on time DOther routes from Chicago
Common questions
Are flights from Chicago to St. Louis usually delayed?
75.43% of flights on the ORD to STL route arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, so roughly 2 in every ten arrived late. That is about the same as the average route in this record.
How often are ORD to STL flights cancelled?
2.64% of scheduled flights did not operate — about 26 in every thousand. That is high enough that cancellation, not delay, is the risk worth planning around.
When ORD to STL flights are late, how late are they?
About 73 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 ORD to STL 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 →