Route reliability record
CLT→MDW
Charlotte to Chicago
- Flights
- 722
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 584 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 722 CLT to MDW flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to MDW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.6%, against 76.4% 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
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 702 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.66%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
76.4% on time across 722 flights
These figures cover 722 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 CLT 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 | 722 | 76.4% | 60 min | 1.66% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte 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. CLT → ORDCharlotte to Chicago | Republic Airways | 79.0% | 81.3% | 2.86% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 2. CLT → MDWCharlotte to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 75.1% | 76.4% | 1.66% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. CLT → ORDCharlotte to Chicago | American Airlines | 69.6% | 71.5% | 2.70% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. CLT → ORDCharlotte to Chicago | United Airlines | 67.9% | 69.2% | 1.83% | 5am–8am, 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 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am237 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am83 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm37 flights91.7%
- 2pm–5pm35 flights78.1%
- 5pm–8pm294 flights59.9%
- 8pm–5am36 flights65.7%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.9% on time, against 92.2% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 294 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT 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 CLT to MDW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.9%, a wide gap of 32.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.2%
- 8–11am86.4%
- 11am–2pm91.7%
- 2–5pm78.1%
- 5–8pm59.9%
- 8pm–5am65.7%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 92.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 84 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.6%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 9,881 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,881 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 9,881 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 92.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.66% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.11%.
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 584 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 73.2% on time across 722 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 722 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. 722 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 76.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 702 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to MDW questions
How often is CLT to MDW delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.6% of the 722 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to MDW compared with the rest of the country?
76.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to MDW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.9%, 32 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 March delays on CLT to MDW?
March is the weakest month at 66.1% on time, compared with 92.9% in September. Across the year that is 27 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 CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ATL to MDW, a related route75.2%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.4%
- 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. CLT to MDW and MDW to CLT 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.