Route reliability record
DTW→MDW
Detroit to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,184
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 228 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,184 DTW to MDW flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Best time to fly DTW to MDW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.0% of the time and Friday flights 79.0%, against 73.9% 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
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,167 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
72.4% on time across 1,047 flights
These figures cover 1,184 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 137 | 84.7% | 49 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,047 | 72.4% | 51 min | 1.24% | C |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit 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. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | Republic Airways | 77.6% | 81.8% | 5.08% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | Envoy Air | 76.4% | 79.2% | 3.49% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | United Airlines | 72.8% | 73.5% | 0.97% | 11am–2pm, Tue | UA 426 09:00 |
| 4. DTW → MDWDetroit to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 71.5% | 72.4% | 1.24% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 5. DTW → ORDDetroit to Chicago | Delta Air Lines | 67.7% | 69.9% | 3.20% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1665 20:00 |
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 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am187 flights83.0%
- 8am–11am246 flights78.9%
- 11am–2pm278 flights76.3%
- 2pm–5pm58 flights80.7%
- 5pm–8pm256 flights69.3%
- 8pm–5am159 flights55.8%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.8% on time, against 83.0% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 278 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW 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 DTW to MDW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 83.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 55.8%, a wide gap of 27.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am83.0%
- 8–11am78.9%
- 11am–2pm76.3%
- 2–5pm80.7%
- 5–8pm69.3%
- 8pm–5am55.8%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
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.
June is the worst month at 55.3% on time, 30 points below September, the best at 85.3%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 154 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 79.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.5%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%National Airspace System
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 to one. The split is drawn from 15,285 reported delay minutes.
35% 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 5,344 minutes out of 15,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.7% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 228 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 75.9% on time across 1,183 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,184 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 85.3% on time and June 55.3%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,167 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to MDW questions
How often is DTW 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 26.1% of the 1,184 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is DTW to MDW compared with the rest of the country?
73.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to MDW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.8%, 27 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 June delays on DTW to MDW?
June is the weakest month at 55.3% on time, compared with 85.3% 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 DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to MDW84.7%
- Southwest Airlines on DTW to MDW72.4%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ATL to MDW, a related route75.2%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record84.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.4%
- 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. DTW to MDW and MDW to DTW 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.