Route reliability record
MDW→MSP
Chicago to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 2,275
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 349 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,275 MDW to MSP flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 712 at 78.6% on time.
Best time to fly MDW to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Saturday flights 83.0%, against 77.0% 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
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,231 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
78.6% on time across 712 flights
These figures cover 2,275 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 MSP
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 712 | 78.6% | 89 min | 1.54% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,563 | 76.2% | 54 min | 1.98% | B |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 78.6%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Minneapolis
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → MSPChicago to Minneapolis | SkyWest Airlines | 77.4% | 78.6% | 1.54% | 2pm–5pm, Sat | — |
| 2. MDW → MSPChicago to Minneapolis | Southwest Airlines | 74.7% | 76.2% | 1.98% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → MSPChicago to Minneapolis | Envoy Air | 73.8% | 75.9% | 2.82% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 4. ORD → MSPChicago to Minneapolis | United Airlines | 69.3% | 70.2% | 1.29% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2232 07:00 |
| 5. ORD → MSPChicago to Minneapolis | Republic Airways | 68.3% | 73.6% | 7.22% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 25 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am98 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am651 flights84.2%
- 11am–2pm382 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm397 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm457 flights70.2%
- 8pm–5am290 flights65.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.6% of the time, against 65.6% for the overnight window. That is 25 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 651 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MDW to MSP 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 MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.6%, a wide gap of 25.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.6%
- 8–11am84.2%
- 11am–2pm80.8%
- 2–5pm73.9%
- 5–8pm70.2%
- 8pm–5am65.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
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.
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. October was the busiest month here, with 246 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.2%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 33,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%Extreme weather
- 12%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 32,707 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 33,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 about an hour, 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 78.1% on time across 2,303 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 2,275 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 MSP 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. 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. 2,231 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.0% of the 2,275 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MDW to MSP?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 78.6% on time across 712 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 76.2%, a gap of 2 points. 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 90.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.6%, 25 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.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on MDW to MSP78.6%
- Southwest Airlines on MDW to MSP76.2%
- MDW to ATL, a related route78.7%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- MDW to PHX, a related route74.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record78.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.
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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.