Route reliability record
MDW→LGA
Chicago to New York
- Flights
- 2,391
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 725 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,391 MDW to LGA flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
Best time to fly MDW to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 75.6%, against 68.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 92 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,254 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
68.1% on time across 2,391 flights
These figures cover 2,391 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 LGA
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 | 2,391 | 68.1% | 59 min | 4.48% | C− |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to New York
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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → JFKChicago to New York | Republic Airways | 74.6% | 77.5% | 3.73% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → EWRChicago to Newark | Envoy Air | 73.5% | 78.0% | 5.82% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → HPNChicago to White Plains | Envoy Air | 73.4% | 76.3% | 3.78% | 8am–11am, Sat | MQ 3812 08:10 |
| 4. ORD → JFKChicago to New York | JetBlue Airways | 72.0% | 78.2% | 7.90% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. ORD → EWRChicago to Newark | United Airlines | 69.9% | 72.0% | 2.85% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 563 07:10 |
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 45 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am371 flights89.5%
- 8am–11am618 flights81.1%
- 11am–2pm389 flights67.0%
- 2pm–5pm334 flights54.1%
- 5pm–8pm516 flights52.5%
- 8pm–5am163 flights44.7%
Scale runs 35% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 44.7% on time, against 89.5% 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 618 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MDW to LGA 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 LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 44.7%, a wide gap of 44.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.5%
- 8–11am81.1%
- 11am–2pm67.0%
- 2–5pm54.1%
- 5–8pm52.5%
- 8pm–5am44.7%
best all US flightsScale 35% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 35 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 50.6%. January is the strongest month at 85.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 35 points. July was the busiest month here, with 211 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 75.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.7%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 42,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
44% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 19,000 minutes out of 42,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 42,440 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 89.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.48%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 725 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 runs 70.2% on time across 2,391 flights, within 2 points 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 2,391 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.48% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,254 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to LGA questions
How often is MDW to LGA 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 31.9% of the 2,391 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MDW to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
68.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 44.7%, 45 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 LGA?
March is the weakest month at 50.6% on time, compared with 85.2% in January. Across the year that is 35 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
- LGA to MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- MDW to ATL, a related route78.7%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- MDW to PHX, a related route74.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record68.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. MDW to LGA and LGA 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.