Route reliability record
MDW→MCI
Chicago to Kansas City
- Flights
- 2,108
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 404 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 2,108 MDW to MCI flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly MDW to MCI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.1%, against 78.0% 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
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,076 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.0% on time across 2,108 flights
These figures cover 2,108 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 MCI
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 | 2,108 | 78.0% | 52 min | 1.38% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Kansas City
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 → MCIChicago to Kansas City | Republic Airways | 77.5% | 78.9% | 1.78% | 2pm–5pm, Thu | — |
| 2. MDW → MCIChicago to Kansas City | Southwest Airlines | 76.9% | 78.0% | 1.38% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → MCIChicago to Kansas City | Envoy Air | 71.6% | 74.2% | 3.46% | 11am–2pm, Sun | — |
| 4. ORD → MCIChicago to Kansas City | United Airlines | 70.1% | 71.2% | 1.60% | 8am–11am, Mon | UA 561 12:40 |
| 5. ORD → MCIChicago to Kansas City | SkyWest Airlines | 64.3% | 67.0% | 4.09% | 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–8am178 flights94.3%
- 8am–11am558 flights86.6%
- 11am–2pm341 flights84.2%
- 2pm–5pm429 flights75.2%
- 5pm–8pm237 flights67.8%
- 8pm–5am365 flights60.7%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.7% on time, against 94.3% 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 558 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MDW to MCI 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 MCI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 60.7%, a wide gap of 33.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.3%
- 8–11am86.6%
- 11am–2pm84.2%
- 2–5pm75.2%
- 5–8pm67.8%
- 8pm–5am60.7%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
July is the worst month at 67.5% on time, 19 points below November, the best at 86.7%. 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 208 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.1%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. The split is drawn from 23,622 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,237 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.38% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.7% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 404 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 80.4% on time across 2,112 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 2,108 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 MCI 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 86.7% on time and July 67.5%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,076 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to MCI questions
How often is MDW to MCI delayed?
Roughly 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 22.0% of the 2,108 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is MDW to MCI compared with the rest of the country?
78.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point 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 MCI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.7%, 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 July delays on MDW to MCI?
July is the weakest month at 67.5% on time, compared with 86.7% in November. Across the year that is 19 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
- MCI to MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- MDW to ATL, a related route78.7%
- DEN to MCI, a related route76.5%
- MDW to PHX, a related route74.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.0%
- 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 MCI and MCI 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.