Carrier route record

WNMDW→MSP

Southwest Airlines · Chicago to Minneapolis

Flights: 1,594
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 64%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on MDW to MSP lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 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 1,594 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on MDW to MSP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

76.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,563 completed flights

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.82%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.9%

Every carrier on MDW to MSP, 2,485 flights

These figures cover 1,594 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on MDW to MSP

Southwest flew 1,594 of the 2,485 flights on MDW to MSP, most of the route. Its 76.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 77.2% to Southwest at 76.6%.

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.

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 (this page)	1,594	76.6%	57 min	1.82%	B

Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

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–11am418 flights85.9%
11am–2pm257 flights77.5%
2pm–5pm288 flights72.9%
5pm–8pm243 flights72.1%
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 418 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on MDW to MSP through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, June worst

June is the worst month at 64.1% on time, 25 points below February, the best at 89.1%. 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 161 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.9%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 20,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
49%
Carrier
34%
National Airspace System
14%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 20,432 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 87.8% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.82% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.3% 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 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 79.1% on time across 1,608 flights, within 3 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 1,594 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 Southwest on MDW to MSP

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 89.1% on time and June 64.1%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,563 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures