Route profile
MDW→ATL
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Chicago to Atlanta, 591 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 56% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 11,324 flights. How this is calculated
MDW → ATL arrives on time 80.4% of the time; the return trip, ATL → MDW, arrives on time 78.1% of the time, a 2.3-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
MDW → ATL spends 24.8 minutes on the ground on a 591-mile trip: 14.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at MDW and 10.3 minutes from touchdown to gate at ATL.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why MDW → ATL flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
MDW → ATL cancelled 167 of 11,324 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 68. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 57.5% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 118 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 167 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
96 cancellations, 57.5% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
69 cancellations, 41.3% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
2 cancellations, 1.2% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
167 coded cancellations were recorded on MDW → ATL; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
39 min late
against a median of 8 min early
Percentiles over 11,324 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at ATL after arriving from MDW.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 34% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 19% | High risk |
| 60 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 6.3% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.0% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.47% of the time and diverts 0.29% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,124 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 39 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,324 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
MDW → ATL flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 86.6% of the time, against 61.6% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 25.0 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 92.4% on time from 253 flights
- 6 AM: 85.2% on time from 1,872 flights
- 7 AM: 87.3% on time from 599 flights
- 8 AM: 88.1% on time from 519 flights
- 9 AM: 87.5% on time from 497 flights
- 10 AM: 87.0% on time from 1,032 flights
- 11 AM: 82.3% on time from 502 flights
- 12 PM: 83.0% on time from 1,216 flights
- 1 PM: 79.7% on time from 429 flights
- 2 PM: 76.5% on time from 466 flights
- 3 PM: 76.5% on time from 666 flights
- 4 PM: 72.8% on time from 580 flights
- 5 PM: 77.2% on time from 902 flights
- 6 PM: 70.2% on time from 1,063 flights
- 7 PM: 65.2% on time from 224 flights
- 8 PM: 65.0% on time from 216 flights
- 9 PM: 63.1% on time from 246 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why MDW → ATL runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for MDW → ATL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is the one the flight leaves from, where a cancellation keeps it from departing at all. Bad weather cancels 6.5 times the normal rate at MDW against 3.3 times at ATL. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: MDW 5.0% against 0.8%, ATL 3.4% against 1.0%. Flights that did leave MDW in bad weather arrived on time 62.3% of the time, against 78.1% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | MDW | ATL |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 5.0% | 3.4% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 0.8% | 1.0% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 62.3% | 66.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 78.1% | 80.2% |
| Departures in bad weather | 26,598 | 105,854 |
None of the 2 carriers on this route stood clearly apart from the other carriers at MDW in bad weather. One more carrier flies this route but has too few bad-weather departures from MDW to compare.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at MDW
All departures from MDW| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 527 | 3.8%about level | 4.9% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,009 | 5.6%about level | 4.7% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from MDW and ATL, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from MDW on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: MDW (airlines), ATL, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 5,185 | 78.7% | 1.08% | -4 min | 6.0% |
| Delta Air Lines | 4,472 | 86.1% | 1.65% | -15 min | 5.8% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,667 | 70.1% | 2.22% | -2 min | 9.8% |
Southwest Airlines flew 45.8% of the 11,324 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 2.22% of its flights here against 1.08% for Southwest Airlines.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 16.0 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Other ways to fly Chicago to Atlanta
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD→ATL Chicago to Atlanta | 18,588 | 75.6% | 1.62% | -6 min | 55 |
| MDW→ATL this route Chicago to Atlanta | 11,324 | 80.4% | 1.47% | -8 min | 68 |
MDW → ATL is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 80.4% on time, against 75.6% for ORD → ATL.
Flying to ATL from the Chicago area? Compare MDW, ORD for ATL, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL1063 Delta Air Lines | 10:41 AM | 1,013 | 88.8% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 6.8 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 78.7%
- Feb: 83.8%
- Mar: 80.2%
- Apr: 83.2%
- May: 78.5%
- Jun: 77.0%
- Jul: 66.8%
- Aug: 80.2%
- Sep: 85.7%
- Oct: 87.2%
- Nov: 86.6%
- Dec: 81.7%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 20.4 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 61.7% from 324 flights
- August 2023: 75.6% from 339 flights
- September 2023: 83.2% from 310 flights
- October 2023: 84.5% from 355 flights
- November 2023: 91.2% from 308 flights
- December 2023: 83.9% from 298 flights
- January 2024: 74.3% from 262 flights
- February 2024: 87.8% from 245 flights
- March 2024: 82.6% from 307 flights
- April 2024: 85.2% from 313 flights
- May 2024: 79.6% from 314 flights
- June 2024: 83.5% from 331 flights
- July 2024: 68.3% from 339 flights
- August 2024: 84.1% from 348 flights
- September 2024: 86.3% from 329 flights
- October 2024: 89.4% from 340 flights
- November 2024: 85.8% from 331 flights
- December 2024: 83.2% from 304 flights
- January 2025: 79.8% from 279 flights
- February 2025: 84.1% from 234 flights
- March 2025: 82.4% from 305 flights
- April 2025: 79.3% from 310 flights
- May 2025: 79.9% from 330 flights
- June 2025: 72.8% from 318 flights
- July 2025: 70.8% from 324 flights
- August 2025: 80.7% from 305 flights
- September 2025: 87.7% from 292 flights
- October 2025: 87.8% from 304 flights
- November 2025: 82.4% from 288 flights
- December 2025: 77.9% from 290 flights
- January 2026: 81.6% from 279 flights
- February 2026: 79.8% from 260 flights
- March 2026: 75.1% from 289 flights
- April 2026: 85.0% from 291 flights
- May 2026: 75.7% from 298 flights
- June 2026: 74.2% from 308 flights
- July 2026: 66.2% from 323 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 79.4% against 81.5% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.1 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,324 MDW → ATL flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed