Route reliability record
MDW→IND
Chicago to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 740
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 162 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 4 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 740 MDW to IND flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly MDW to IND: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 90.6%, against 81.1% 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
81.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 730 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.35%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
81.1% on time across 740 flights
These figures cover 740 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 IND
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 | 740 | 81.1% | 65 min | 1.35% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Indianapolis
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 → INDChicago to Indianapolis | Southwest Airlines | 80.0% | 81.1% | 1.35% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → INDChicago to Indianapolis | Envoy Air | 77.9% | 79.2% | 1.65% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ORD → INDChicago to Indianapolis | Republic Airways | 73.6% | 76.5% | 3.74% | 5am–8am, Tue | YX 3526 21:30 |
| 4. ORD → INDChicago to Indianapolis | United Airlines | 68.4% | 69.9% | 2.20% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → INDChicago to Indianapolis | American Airlines | 65.0% | 68.9% | 5.66% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am3 flights—
- 8am–11am363 flights90.3%
- 11am–2pm7 flights—
- 2pm–5pm3 flights—
- 5pm–8pm41 flights80.0%
- 8pm–5am323 flights70.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.3% of the time, against 70.0% for the overnight window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 363 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MDW to IND 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 IND, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 70.0%, a wide gap of 20.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am90.3%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm80.0%
- 8pm–5am70.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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 61.3% on time, 32 points below February, the best at 93.0%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 66 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 8,934 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,934 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 58 to one. The split is drawn from 8,934 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.35% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.8% 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 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.5% on time across 741 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 740 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 IND after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 740 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 81.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 730 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to IND questions
How often is MDW to IND 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 18.9% of the 740 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MDW to IND compared with the rest of the country?
81.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 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 IND?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 70.0%, 20 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 IND?
August is the weakest month at 61.3% on time, compared with 93.0% in February. Across the year that is 32 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
- IND to MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- MDW to ATL, a related route78.7%
- ORD to IND, a related route74.1%
- MDW to PHX, a related route74.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.1%
- 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 IND and IND 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.