Carrier route record
OOMSP→MDW
SkyWest Airlines · Minneapolis to Chicago
- Flights
- 891
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 36%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on MSP to MDW lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 891 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on MSP to MDW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 876 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.2%
Every carrier on MSP to MDW, 2,499 flights
These figures cover 891 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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
SkyWest against every carrier on MSP to MDW
SkyWest flew 891 of the 2,499 flights on MSP to MDW, about 36% of it. Its 76.6% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 79.1% to SkyWest at 76.6%.
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 | 1,608 | 79.1% | 53 min | 1.68% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 891 | 76.6% | 69 min | 1.35% | B |
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 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–8am276 flights79.8%
- 8am–11am34 flights76.5%
- 11am–2pm274 flights79.3%
- 2pm–5pm208 flights75.0%
- 5pm–8pm99 flights63.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.5% on time, against 79.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 276 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on MSP to MDW through the year
January is the weak month at 54.8% on time, against 93.5% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.6%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 70% of the 14,000 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.
- 70%Carrier
- 20%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 20% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 14,116 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 9,823 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.35% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.4% 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 a little over 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 77.2% on time across 891 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 891 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.
What to do with this
Booking SkyWest on MSP to MDW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 891 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 76.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 876 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to MDW, every carrier
- SkyWest on MDW to MSP, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on MSP to MDW79.1%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.