PlainFlights

SNA vs ORD - Airport Comparison

Select two airports to compare on-time performance, delays, cancellations, and top routes using U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data (2020–2025) across all 50 states. See our methodology for how metrics are computed.

Airport A
SNA

Santa Ana, CA

Santa Ana, California

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Airport B
ORD

Chicago, IL

Chicago, Illinois

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Key Performance Metrics

BTS on-time performance data, 2020–2025 cumulative.

Metric SNA ORD
On-Time Rate (higher is better) 82.5% 81.0%
Avg Delay (lower is better) 65.2 min 81.9 min
Delay Rate (lower is better) 17.5% 19.0%
Cancellation Rate (lower is better) 1.05% 1.16%
Total Flights 482,186 3,114,086
Delayed Flights 84,472 592,111
Cancelled Flights 5,040 36,132
Top Delay Cause Late Aircraft Late Aircraft

✓ / ▲ indicates the more favorable value. Data: BTS On-Time Performance, 2020–2025.

Delay Cause Breakdown

SNA - Santa Ana, CA

Late Aircraft 44.5%
Carrier 32.3%
NAS 19.9%
Weather 3.1%
Security 0.2%

ORD - Chicago, IL

Late Aircraft 39.2%
Carrier 33.6%
NAS 19.5%
Weather 7.7%
Security 0.1%

Top Routes

Top routes from SNA

Route Flights On-Time
SNA → PHX
Phoenix
23,628 83.2%
PHX → SNA
Santa Ana
23,622 83.1%
SNA → LAS
Las Vegas
23,140 79.7%
LAS → SNA
Santa Ana
23,131 79.3%
SNA → SFO
San Francisco
22,074 81%
SFO → SNA
Santa Ana
22,048 84.4%

Top routes from ORD

Route Flights On-Time
ORD → LGA
New York
56,539 78.2%
LGA → ORD
Chicago
56,521 80.8%
ORD → LAX
Los Angeles
37,020 79.8%
LAX → ORD
Chicago
36,987 84.3%
ORD → DEN
Denver
35,971 79.3%
DEN → ORD
Chicago
35,925 76.8%

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) On-time rates exclude cancelled and diverted flights. PlainFlights is not affiliated with BTS or the DOT

Every figure on PlainFlights is rendered directly from BTS On-Time Performance data, no number is typed in by an editor. This tool queries live on-time, delay, and cancellation figures for the two selected airports from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.