Route reliability record
MDW→LGA
Chicago to New York
- Flights
- 2,378
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 725 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 2,378 flights, with a median arrival 1 minutes late.
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 2,267 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
68.9% on time across 2,378 flights
These figures cover 2,378 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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 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 | 2,378 | 68.9% | 58 min | 4.08% | C− |
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 44 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–8am359 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am617 flights80.8%
- 11am–2pm389 flights67.8%
- 2pm–5pm335 flights55.2%
- 5pm–8pm500 flights55.9%
- 8pm–5am178 flights46.4%
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 46.4% on time, against 90.3% 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 617 flights scheduled in it.
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. June was the busiest month here, with 206 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 75.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.0%. 13 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. National Airspace System accounts for 48% of the 41,000 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.
- 48%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 20,000 minutes out of 41,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 41,057 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.08%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.6% on time across 2,378 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,378 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.08% 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. 2,267 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 arrive 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 2,378 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MDW to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
68.9% 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 LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 46.4%, 44 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
- Southwest Airlines on-time record68.9%
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.