Route reliability record
MDW→CLE
Chicago to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,115
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 307 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,115 MDW to CLE flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly MDW to CLE: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 98.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.2%, against 79.6% 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
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,097 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.35%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
79.6% on time across 1,115 flights
These figures cover 1,115 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 MDW to CLE
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 | 1,115 | 79.6% | 60 min | 1.35% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Cleveland
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. MDW → CLEChicago to Cleveland | Southwest Airlines | 78.5% | 79.6% | 1.35% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | Republic Airways | 72.1% | 76.2% | 5.32% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | United Airlines | 70.9% | 71.8% | 1.28% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2389 10:29 |
| 4. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | Envoy Air | 70.1% | 73.1% | 4.10% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | SkyWest Airlines | 65.0% | 67.3% | 3.40% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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–8am50 flights98.0%
- 8am–11am269 flights89.5%
- 11am–2pm261 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm144 flights78.3%
- 5pm–8pm268 flights64.1%
- 8pm–5am123 flights76.9%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.1% on time, against 98.0% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 269 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MDW to CLE 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 CLE, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 98.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.1%, a wide gap of 33.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am98.0%
- 8–11am89.5%
- 11am–2pm83.5%
- 2–5pm78.3%
- 5–8pm64.1%
- 8pm–5am76.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
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.
August is the worst month at 68.4% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 93.5%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 115 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.2% on time and Saturday the weakest at 71.1%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
57% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. The split is drawn from 13,381 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 98.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.35% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.7% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 307 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 80.9% on time across 1,115 flights, within about a point 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 1,115 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 CLE 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 93.5% on time and August 68.4%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,097 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to CLE questions
How often is MDW to CLE delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.4% of the 1,115 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MDW to CLE compared with the rest of the country?
79.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MDW to CLE?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 98.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.1%, 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 August delays on MDW to CLE?
August is the weakest month at 68.4% on time, compared with 93.5% in September. 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
- CLE to MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- MDW to ATL, a related route78.7%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.8%
- MDW to PHX, a related route74.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.6%
- 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 CLE and CLE 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.