Route reliability record
MSP→MDW
Minneapolis to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,303
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 349 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,303 MSP to MDW flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,591 at 78.8% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to MDW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.5% of the time and Saturday flights 85.7%, against 78.1% 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
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,258 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.8% on time across 1,591 flights
These figures cover 2,303 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to MDW
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,591 | 78.8% | 52 min | 1.70% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 712 | 76.7% | 68 min | 1.54% | B |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 78.8%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Minneapolis to Chicago
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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSP → MDWMinneapolis to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 77.5% | 78.8% | 1.70% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. MSP → MDWMinneapolis to Chicago | SkyWest Airlines | 75.5% | 76.7% | 1.54% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 3. MSP → ORDMinneapolis to Chicago | Envoy Air | 72.7% | 74.9% | 2.91% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. MSP → ORDMinneapolis to Chicago | Republic Airways | 69.0% | 75.0% | 7.98% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 5. MSP → ORDMinneapolis to Chicago | United Airlines | 68.5% | 69.7% | 1.71% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 758 08:00 |
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 19 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am621 flights87.5%
- 8am–11am336 flights83.5%
- 11am–2pm477 flights75.9%
- 2pm–5pm522 flights71.9%
- 5pm–8pm339 flights68.6%
- 8pm–5am8 flights—
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 87.5% of the time, against 68.6% for the evening window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 621 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP to MDW 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 MSP to MDW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.6%, a wide gap of 18.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.5%
- 8–11am83.5%
- 11am–2pm75.9%
- 2–5pm71.9%
- 5–8pm68.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
December is the weak month at 62.4% on time, against 89.8% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 246 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.4%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 28,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 28,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 28,161 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 87.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.65% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.8% 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.
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 77.0% on time across 2,275 flights, within about 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 2,303 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 MDW 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. October runs 89.8% on time and December 62.4%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,258 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to MDW questions
How often is MSP to MDW delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.9% of the 2,303 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to MDW?
Southwest Airlines leads at 78.8% on time across 1,591 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 76.7%, a gap of 2 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to MDW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.6%, 19 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 December delays on MSP to MDW?
December is the weakest month at 62.4% on time, compared with 89.8% in October. Across the year that is 27 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
- MDW to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on MSP to MDW78.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to MDW76.7%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ATL to MDW, a related route75.2%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record76.7%
- 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. MSP to MDW and MDW to MSP 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.