Route reliability record
MDW→ALB
Chicago to Albany
- Flights
- 737
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 717 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 737 MDW to ALB flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
Best time to fly MDW to ALB: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.8% of the time and Friday flights 77.0%, against 70.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 65 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 729 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
70.8% on time across 737 flights
These figures cover 737 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 MDW to ALB
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 | 737 | 70.8% | 57 min | 0.95% | C+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Albany
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. ORD → ALBChicago to Albany | Envoy Air | 78.0% | 80.1% | 2.56% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | — |
| 2. ORD → ALBChicago to Albany | United Airlines | 72.9% | 73.7% | 1.02% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → ALBChicago to Albany | Republic Airways | 70.3% | 73.4% | 4.19% | 2pm–5pm, Thu | — |
| 4. MDW → ALBChicago to Albany | Southwest Airlines | 70.1% | 70.8% | 0.95% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 5. ORD → ALBChicago to Albany | SkyWest Airlines | 69.8% | 72.6% | 3.83% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am48 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am100 flights87.0%
- 11am–2pm249 flights72.1%
- 2pm–5pm32 flights84.4%
- 5pm–8pm281 flights59.8%
- 8pm–5am27 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.8% on time, against 93.8% 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 281 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MDW to ALB 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 MDW to ALB, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.8%, a wide gap of 34.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.8%
- 8–11am87.0%
- 11am–2pm72.1%
- 2–5pm84.4%
- 5–8pm59.8%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 37 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 87.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 87 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 77.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.7%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
48% 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 30 to one. The split is drawn from 12,186 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,386 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.0% 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 717 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 78.4% on time across 737 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 737 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 ALB after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 737 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 70.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 729 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to ALB questions
How often is MDW to ALB delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.2% of the 737 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MDW to ALB compared with the rest of the country?
70.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MDW to ALB?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.8%, 34 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 MDW to ALB?
March is the weakest month at 50.9% on time, compared with 87.7% in April. Across the year that is 37 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
- ALB to MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- MDW to ATL, a related route78.7%
- ORD to ALB, a related route75.2%
- MDW to PHX, a related route74.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record70.8%
- 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. MDW to ALB and ALB to MDW 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.