Route reliability record
MDW→OMA
Chicago to Omaha
- Flights
- 1,316
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 423 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,316 MDW to OMA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly MDW to OMA: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.0%, against 74.4% 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
74.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,301 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.06%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
74.4% on time across 1,316 flights
These figures cover 1,316 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MDW to OMA
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 | 1,316 | 74.4% | 49 min | 1.06% | C |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Omaha
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. MDW → OMAChicago to Omaha | Southwest Airlines | 73.6% | 74.4% | 1.06% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 2. ORD → OMAChicago to Omaha | Envoy Air | 73.0% | 75.7% | 3.52% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → OMAChicago to Omaha | United Airlines | 68.5% | 69.6% | 1.52% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 1778 08:40 |
| 4. ORD → OMAChicago to Omaha | SkyWest Airlines | 61.7% | 63.7% | 3.10% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 5. ORD → LNKChicago to Lincoln | SkyWest Airlines | 59.2% | 61.3% | 3.45% | 8am–11am, Tue | OO 5215 08:45 |
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am25 flights—
- 8am–11am359 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm255 flights84.6%
- 2pm–5pm191 flights77.1%
- 5pm–8pm183 flights64.8%
- 8pm–5am303 flights61.4%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.4% on time, against 84.6% for the 11am–2pm 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 359 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MDW to OMA 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 OMA, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 84.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 61.4%, a wide gap of 23.2 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am81.7%
- 11am–2pm84.6%
- 2–5pm77.1%
- 5–8pm64.8%
- 8pm–5am61.4%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
June is the worst month at 59.6% on time, 28 points below September, the best at 87.4%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 123 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.3%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 16,222 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.06% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.5% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 423 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.1% on time across 1,317 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,316 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 OMA 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. September runs 87.4% on time and June 59.6%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,301 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to OMA questions
How often is MDW to OMA delayed?
About 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 25.6% of the 1,316 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is MDW to OMA compared with the rest of the country?
74.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 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 OMA?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 84.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.4%, 23 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 June delays on MDW to OMA?
June is the weakest month at 59.6% on time, compared with 87.4% in September. Across the year that is 28 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
- OMA to MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- Eppley Airfield (OMA) delay statistics
- MDW to ATL, a related route78.7%
- DEN to OMA, a related route76.9%
- MDW to PHX, a related route74.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.4%
- 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 OMA and OMA 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.