Route reliability record
MDW→LAX
Chicago to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 1,328
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,751 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, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,328 MDW to LAX flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
Best time to fly MDW to LAX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 75.8%, against 68.9% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 87 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,310 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
68.9% on time across 1,328 flights
These figures cover 1,328 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MDW to LAX
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 | 1,328 | 68.9% | 50 min | 0.98% | C+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Los Angeles
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 → LAXChicago to Los Angeles | United Airlines | 76.0% | 76.5% | 0.65% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2361 07:10 |
| 2. ORD → SNAChicago to Santa Ana | United Airlines | 75.0% | 75.2% | 0.29% | 5pm–8pm, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → SNAChicago to Santa Ana | American Airlines | 74.1% | 75.4% | 1.79% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2285 08:15 |
| 4. MDW → LAXChicago to Los Angeles | Southwest Airlines | 68.2% | 68.9% | 0.98% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → LAXChicago to Los Angeles | American Airlines | 67.0% | 68.6% | 2.29% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1979 10:30 |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am173 flights87.1%
- 8am–11am345 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm73 flights72.6%
- 2pm–5pm174 flights62.9%
- 5pm–8pm191 flights58.7%
- 8pm–5am372 flights61.4%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.7% on time, against 87.1% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 372 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 52.8% on time, 24 points below November, the best at 77.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 146 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 64.5%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 20,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 20,302 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 7,871 of the 20,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.38%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,751 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.0% on time across 1,328 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,328 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 LAX 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. November runs 77.0% on time and June 52.8%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,310 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to LAX questions
How often is MDW to LAX delayed?
About 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 31.1% of the 1,328 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is MDW to LAX compared with the rest of the country?
68.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 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 LAX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.7%, 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 June delays on MDW to LAX?
June is the weakest month at 52.8% on time, compared with 77.0% in November. Across the year that is 24 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
- LAX to MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- MDW to ATL, a related route79.8%
- SFO to LAX, a related route73.9%
- MDW to PHX, a related route75.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record68.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. MDW to LAX and LAX 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.