Route reliability record
MDW→PVD
Chicago to Providence
- Flights
- 776
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 842 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 776 MDW to PVD flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly MDW to PVD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.8%, against 77.6% 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
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 764 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.42%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.6% on time across 776 flights
These figures cover 776 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 | 776 | 77.6% | 59 min | 1.42% | B |
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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 | 80.6% | 82.7% | 2.50% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. MDW → PVDChicago to Providence | Southwest Airlines | 76.5% | 77.6% | 1.42% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ORD → BOSChicago to Boston | United Airlines | 66.8% | 68.0% | 1.79% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 1693 13:55 |
| 4. ORD → BOSChicago to Boston | Republic Airways | 65.6% | 69.7% | 5.90% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → BOSChicago to Boston | JetBlue Airways | 65.4% | 68.1% | 3.98% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 312 10:56 |
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–8am113 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am137 flights89.8%
- 11am–2pm132 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm59 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm294 flights68.4%
- 8pm–5am41 flights70.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.1% of the time, against 68.4% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 294 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MDW to PVD 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 PVD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.4%, a wide gap of 22.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.1%
- 8–11am89.8%
- 11am–2pm77.5%
- 2–5pm74.1%
- 5–8pm68.4%
- 8pm–5am70.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
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. September was the busiest month here, with 86 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.2%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 9%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. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 10,135 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 91.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.42% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.2% 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.
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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.1% on time across 778 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 776 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. 776 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 77.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 764 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to PVD questions
How often is MDW to PVD 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 22.4% of the 776 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MDW to PVD compared with the rest of the country?
77.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. 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 91.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.4%, 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 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 route78.7%
- DCA to PVD, a related route72.5%
- MDW to PHX, a related route74.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.6%
- 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 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.