Route reliability record
BDL→MDW
Hartford to Chicago
- Flights
- 837
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 776 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 837 BDL to MDW flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly BDL to MDW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.1% of the time and Friday flights 84.8%, against 78.6% 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
78.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 821 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.6% on time across 837 flights
These figures cover 837 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 BDL 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 | 837 | 78.6% | 67 min | 1.55% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Hartford 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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BDL → MDWHartford to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 77.4% | 78.6% | 1.55% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 2. BDL → ORDHartford to Chicago | American Airlines | 77.1% | 79.3% | 2.72% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 3. BDL → ORDHartford to Chicago | Republic Airways | 73.5% | 76.7% | 4.19% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 4. BDL → ORDHartford to Chicago | United Airlines | 72.8% | 73.8% | 1.41% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am256 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am91 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm170 flights81.7%
- 2pm–5pm11 flights—
- 5pm–8pm286 flights66.9%
- 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 91.1% of the time, against 66.9% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 286 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BDL 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 BDL to MDW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.9%, a wide gap of 24.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.1%
- 8–11am83.3%
- 11am–2pm81.7%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm66.9%
- 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 30 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 64.4% on time, 30 points below September, the best at 94.5%. 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, Friday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.1%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 11,730 reported delay minutes.
33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 3,820 minutes out of 12,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.55% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.36%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 776 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 runs 76.1% on time across 836 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 837 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. 837 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 78.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 821 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BDL to MDW questions
How often is BDL 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 21.4% of the 837 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is BDL to MDW compared with the rest of the country?
78.6% 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 BDL to MDW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.9%, 24 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 BDL to MDW?
August is the weakest month at 64.4% on time, compared with 94.5% in September. Across the year that is 30 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 BDL — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- BDL to ORD, a related route75.9%
- ATL to MDW, a related route75.2%
- BDL to ATL, a related route84.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.6%
- 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. BDL to MDW and MDW to BDL 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.