Route reliability record

MDW→MSP

Chicago to Minneapolis

Flights: 2,485
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 349 mi
Carriers: 2

This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,485 flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 891 at 77.2% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

76.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,442 completed flights

Avg delay

66 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.65%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

SkyWest

77.2% on time across 891 flights

These figures cover 2,485 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on MDW to MSP

The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on MDW to MSP
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlines	891	77.2%	83 min	1.35%	B
Southwest Airlines	1,594	76.6%	57 min	1.82%	B

No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 77.2%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

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 22 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–8am100 flights87.8%
8am–11am699 flights83.0%
11am–2pm467 flights78.7%
2pm–5pm381 flights75.8%
5pm–8pm550 flights71.7%
8pm–5am288 flights66.2%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.8% of the time, against 66.2% for the overnight window. That is 22 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 699 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 26 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.October best, December worst

December is the weak month at 61.8% on time, against 87.8% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 249 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.8%. 12 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. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 37,000 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.

Carrier
46%
Late-arriving aircraft
27%
Extreme weather
14%
National Airspace System
13%
Security
0%

Extreme weather accounts for 14% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 36,935 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, 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 17,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.65% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

7.3% 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 349 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 78.2% on time across 2,499 flights, within about a point 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 2,485 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 87.8% on time and December 61.8%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,442 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

MDW to MSP questions

How often is MDW to MSP delayed?

Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.1% of the 2,485 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on MDW to MSP?

SkyWest Airlines leads at 77.2% on time across 891 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 76.6%, a gap of half a point. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on MDW to MSP?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.2%, 22 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 December delays on MDW to MSP?

December is the weakest month at 61.8% on time, compared with 87.8% in October. Across the year that is 26 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. MDW to MSP and MSP 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.

Key figures