Route reliability record
MDW→RSW
Chicago to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 1,162
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,105 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 roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,162 MDW to RSW flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly MDW to RSW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.7%, against 75.6% 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
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,137 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.6% on time across 1,162 flights
These figures cover 1,162 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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
Which airline is most reliable on MDW to RSW
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 | 1,162 | 75.6% | 54 min | 1.29% | B |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Fort Myers
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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → RSWChicago to Fort Myers | United Airlines | 81.4% | 81.8% | 0.50% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 1740 07:05 |
| 2. MDW → RSWChicago to Fort Myers | Southwest Airlines | 74.6% | 75.6% | 1.29% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ORD → RSWChicago to Fort Myers | American Airlines | 71.0% | 72.4% | 1.88% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. ORD → RSWChicago to Fort Myers | Spirit Airlines | 57.5% | 60.8% | 5.38% | 8am–11am, 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 39 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–8am163 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am274 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm281 flights74.9%
- 2pm–5pm98 flights69.8%
- 5pm–8pm255 flights70.4%
- 8pm–5am91 flights52.3%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.3% on time, against 91.1% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 281 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 88.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 163 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.7%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
41% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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 14,806 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 1.29% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.86%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,105 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 runs 75.0% on time across 1,161 flights, within half 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 1,162 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 RSW 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 88.4% on time and March 63.6%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,137 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to RSW questions
How often is MDW to RSW 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 24.4% of the 1,162 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is MDW to RSW compared with the rest of the country?
75.6% 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 RSW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 52.3%, 39 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 RSW?
March is the weakest month at 63.6% on time, compared with 88.4% in September. Across the year that is 25 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
- RSW to MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- MDW to ATL, a related route79.8%
- ORD to RSW, a related route76.1%
- MDW to PHX, a related route75.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.6%
- 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 RSW and RSW 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.