Route reliability record
DCA→MDW
Washington to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,099
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 601 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,099 DCA to MDW flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to MDW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Saturday flights 84.2%, against 75.5% 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
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,027 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.76%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.5% on time across 2,099 flights
These figures cover 2,099 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DCA 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 | 2,099 | 75.5% | 66 min | 2.76% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington 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. IAD → ORDWashington to Chicago | United Airlines | 74.0% | 74.7% | 0.90% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1775 08:20 |
| 2. BWI → ORDBaltimore to Chicago | United Airlines | 73.5% | 74.3% | 1.12% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 590 17:32 |
| 3. DCA → MDWWashington to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 73.4% | 75.5% | 2.76% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. BWI → MDWBaltimore to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 73.3% | 75.1% | 2.38% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | — |
| 5. BWI → ORDBaltimore to Chicago | Envoy Air | 73.1% | 76.0% | 3.80% | 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–8am310 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am418 flights86.6%
- 11am–2pm363 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm372 flights67.4%
- 5pm–8pm324 flights59.8%
- 8pm–5am312 flights64.4%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.8% on time, against 91.6% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 418 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA 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 DCA to MDW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.8%, a wide gap of 31.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.6%
- 8–11am86.6%
- 11am–2pm80.0%
- 2–5pm67.4%
- 5–8pm59.8%
- 8pm–5am64.4%
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.
August is the worst month at 60.9% on time, 27 points below September, the best at 88.1%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 181 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.0%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 33,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
59% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 32,598 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 91.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.76%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.4% 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 601 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 68.9% on time across 2,100 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,099 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MDW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.1% on time and August 60.9%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,027 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to MDW questions
How often is DCA 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 24.5% of the 2,099 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DCA to MDW compared with the rest of the country?
75.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to MDW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.8%, 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 August delays on DCA to MDW?
August is the weakest month at 60.9% on time, compared with 88.1% 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 DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ATL to MDW, a related route75.2%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to MDW and MDW to DCA 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.