Route reliability record
ALB→MDW
Albany to Chicago
- Flights
- 737
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 717 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 737 ALB to MDW flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ALB to MDW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.8% of the time and Monday flights 82.1%, against 78.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 722 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.36%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.4% on time across 737 flights
These figures cover 737 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ALB to MDW
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 737 | 78.4% | 63 min | 1.36% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Albany to Chicago
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ALB → ORDAlbany to Chicago | Envoy Air | 81.5% | 83.1% | 1.92% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. ALB → ORDAlbany to Chicago | United Airlines | 77.5% | 78.6% | 1.40% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 2225 06:00 |
| 3. ALB → MDWAlbany to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 77.3% | 78.4% | 1.36% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 4. ALB → ORDAlbany to Chicago | Republic Airways | 69.6% | 72.6% | 4.20% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. ALB → ORDAlbany to Chicago | SkyWest Airlines | 69.4% | 72.2% | 3.83% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am259 flights91.8%
- 8am–11am106 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm41 flights82.5%
- 2pm–5pm49 flights67.4%
- 5pm–8pm259 flights66.8%
- 8pm–5am23 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.8% of the time, against 66.8% for the evening window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 259 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ALB to MDW by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ALB to MDW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.8%, a wide gap of 25.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.8%
- 8–11am83.8%
- 11am–2pm82.5%
- 2–5pm67.4%
- 5–8pm66.8%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
August is the worst month at 60.0% on time, 34 points below January, the best at 94.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 87 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.6%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 9,870 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,870 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 9,870 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.36% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.68%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 717 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.8% on time across 737 flights, 8 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 737 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MDW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 737 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 78.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 722 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ALB to MDW questions
How often is ALB to MDW delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.6% of the 737 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ALB to MDW compared with the rest of the country?
78.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ALB to MDW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.8%, 25 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are August delays on ALB to MDW?
August is the weakest month at 60.0% on time, compared with 94.3% in January. Across the year that is 34 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- MDW to ALB — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- ALB to ORD, a related route77.4%
- ATL to MDW, a related route75.2%
- ALB to BWI, a related route87.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ALB to MDW and MDW to ALB are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.