Route reliability record
MDW→PVD
Chicago to Providence
- Flights
- 778
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 842 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 778 MDW to PVD flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly MDW to PVD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.2%, against 75.9% for the route overall.
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.
Key figures
On time
75.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 767 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.41%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.9% on time across 778 flights
These figures cover 778 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MDW to PVD
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 | 778 | 75.9% | 59 min | 1.41% | B |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Providence
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 → BOSChicago to Boston | Envoy Air | 80.7% | 82.8% | 2.48% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. MDW → PVDChicago to Providence | Southwest Airlines | 74.8% | 75.9% | 1.41% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ORD → BOSChicago to Boston | JetBlue Airways | 71.6% | 73.5% | 2.62% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 312 08:40 |
| 4. ORD → BOSChicago to Boston | United Airlines | 67.3% | 68.6% | 1.87% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 2067 07:30 |
| 5. ORD → BOSChicago to Boston | Delta Air Lines | 67.0% | 69.1% | 3.01% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 36 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–8am89 flights92.0%
- 8am–11am150 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm125 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm70 flights70.0%
- 5pm–8pm280 flights67.5%
- 8pm–5am64 flights56.5%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.5% on time, against 92.0% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 280 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 86 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.8%. 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 11,000 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
54% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 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 10,916 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 92.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.41% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.5% 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.
The 842 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.6% on time across 776 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 778 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PVD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 778 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 75.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 767 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to PVD questions
How often is MDW to PVD 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 24.1% of the 778 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MDW to PVD compared with the rest of the country?
75.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MDW to PVD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.5%, 36 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 March delays on MDW to PVD?
March is the weakest month at 61.6% on time, compared with 93.0% in September. Across the year that is 31 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
- PVD to MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- MDW to ATL, a related route79.8%
- DCA to PVD, a related route72.8%
- MDW to PHX, a related route75.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. MDW to PVD and PVD 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.