Route reliability record
PHX→MDW
Phoenix to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,742
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,444 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,742 PHX to MDW flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
Best time to fly PHX to MDW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 73.2%, against 70.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 65 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,695 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.09%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
70.9% on time across 2,633 flights
These figures cover 2,742 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to MDW
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 | 2,633 | 70.9% | 47 min | 1.06% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 109 | 68.2% | 88 min | 1.83% | C |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix 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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHX → ORDPhoenix to Chicago | American Airlines | 77.3% | 78.9% | 1.99% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. PHX → ORDPhoenix to Chicago | United Airlines | 75.1% | 75.7% | 0.75% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 3. PHX → MDWPhoenix to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 70.1% | 70.9% | 1.06% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. PHX → ORDPhoenix to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 59.1% | 59.9% | 1.26% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 33 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am593 flights89.2%
- 8am–11am509 flights78.6%
- 11am–2pm395 flights67.4%
- 2pm–5pm536 flights59.5%
- 5pm–8pm493 flights56.3%
- 8pm–5am216 flights68.2%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.3% on time, against 89.2% 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 593 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX 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 PHX to MDW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 56.3%, a wide gap of 32.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.2%
- 8–11am78.6%
- 11am–2pm67.4%
- 2–5pm59.5%
- 5–8pm56.3%
- 8pm–5am68.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
July is the worst month at 56.3% on time, 28 points below September, the best at 84.2%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 283 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 73.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.3%, a spread of 5 points.
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 39,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 38,528 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 39,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.62%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.4% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,444 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 74.7% on time across 2,719 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,742 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. September runs 84.2% on time and July 56.3%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,695 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to MDW questions
How often is PHX to MDW delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.2% of the 2,742 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is PHX to MDW compared with the rest of the country?
70.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHX to MDW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.3%, 33 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 July delays on PHX to MDW?
July is the weakest month at 56.3% on time, compared with 84.2% in September. Across the year that is 28 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 PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to MDW70.9%
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to MDW68.2%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- ATL to MDW, a related route75.2%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record70.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record68.2%
- 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. PHX to MDW and MDW to PHX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed PHX to MDW’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.