Route reliability record
IND→MDW
Indianapolis to Chicago
- Flights
- 741
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 162 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average. That rests on 741 IND to MDW flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly IND to MDW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.2% of the time and Thursday flights 83.3%, against 77.5% 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
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 726 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.5% on time across 741 flights
These figures cover 741 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 IND 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 | 741 | 77.5% | 47 min | 1.48% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Indianapolis 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. IND → ORDIndianapolis to Chicago | Republic Airways | 81.1% | 83.2% | 2.52% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 3479 06:00 |
| 2. IND → MDWIndianapolis to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 76.4% | 77.5% | 1.48% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 3. IND → ORDIndianapolis to Chicago | Envoy Air | 75.7% | 77.5% | 2.37% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. IND → ORDIndianapolis to Chicago | United Airlines | 66.6% | 68.3% | 2.49% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. IND → ORDIndianapolis to Chicago | American Airlines | 62.9% | 66.9% | 6.03% | 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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights90.2%
- 8am–11am2 flights—
- 11am–2pm4 flights—
- 2pm–5pm97 flights72.9%
- 5pm–8pm271 flights62.5%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.5% on time, against 90.2% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IND 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 IND to MDW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 62.5%, a wide gap of 27.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.2%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm72.9%
- 5–8pm62.5%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
November is the best month on the calendar at 89.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 69 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.8%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 7,619 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,619 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 to one. The split is drawn from 7,619 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 90.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.48% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.54%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.3% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 162 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.1% on time across 740 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 741 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. 741 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 77.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 726 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IND to MDW questions
How often is IND to MDW delayed?
Roughly 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 22.5% of the 741 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is IND to MDW compared with the rest of the country?
77.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half 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 IND to MDW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.5%, 28 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 IND to MDW?
March is the weakest month at 64.4% on time, compared with 89.5% in November. Across the year that is 25 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 IND — the return legseparate record
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- IND to ORD, a related route76.7%
- ATL to MDW, a related route75.2%
- IND to ATL, a related route87.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.5%
- 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. IND to MDW and MDW to IND 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.