The sector is held by Southwest Airlines.
Airport pair · hand carry reference
MDW Chicago to TPA Tampa
Midway International, the United States, to Tampa International, the United States. Computed from the scheduled network held on 2026-09-07.
- Nonstop
- 4.3 times a day
- Great circle
- 1,607 km
- Block, estimated
- 2h 33m
- Door to door
- 9h 18m
What MDW to TPA looks like
The MDW to TPA sector, the carriers on it and the flying time, before anything is promised to anybody.
Chicago MDW to Tampa TPA is a medium haul sector of 1,607 km by great circle, flown nonstop 4.3 times a day.
At the cruise speed this site models for 1,607 km, 830 km an hour, and thirty minutes of taxi at the two ends, the flight blocks at about 2h 33m.
Chicago MDW is a major hub in the network held here, 208 scheduled destinations and 305.1 departures a day. Tampa TPA has 130 destinations and 263.7 departures a day.
Tampa is one hour ahead of Chicago all year.
The pair sits inside the Americas, a corridor where the site already publishes 13 written lanes that go into customs and ground detail this page does not.
Who flies the sector, and how often
Average daily frequencies on MDW to TPA from the scheduled route statistics, both directions, with the operating carriers named.
| Direction | Flights a day | Flights a week | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| MDW to TPA | 4.29 | 30 | Southwest Airlines |
| TPA to MDW | 4.14 | 29 | Southwest Airlines |
One carrier holds the sector, Southwest Airlines, so a cancellation has no second nonstop behind it and the connections below stop being theoretical.
At 4.3 times a day there is usually another departure within a few hours, which is what makes a same day booking on this pair realistic.
Between them the two directions put about 59 departures a week on MDW to TPA, which is the number that decides whether a seat can be found today or on Thursday.
The clock from collection to signature
The same ground timings the route calculator starts from, applied to the 2h 33m block time on MDW to TPA. Change any of them in the tool further down and the total moves with them.
| Stage | Allowed | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|
| Collection and the run to MDW | 90 min | 1h 30m |
| At MDW before departure | 180 min | 4h 30m |
| MDW to TPA in the air, estimated | 153 min | 7h 03m |
| Formalities at TPA | 90 min | 8h 33m |
| Delivery run in Tampa | 45 min | 9h 18m |
| Door to door | 558 min | 9h 18m |
On the desk standard ground timings, ninety minutes to collect and reach the airport, three hours at the airport before departure, ninety minutes of arrival formalities and a forty five minute delivery run, the door to door figure for MDW to TPA is 9h 18m.
A courier who leaves Chicago at 09:00 local is on the ground in Tampa at about 12:33 local and at the door by 14:48 the same day.
Working backwards from a six in the evening handover in Tampa, the last useful departure from Chicago is around 12:12 local.
When the nonstop does not work
Every airport that joins the two ends, ranked by when they land, among the ones whose weaker leg is dependable enough to plan on. Connection time is allowed for the size of the hub. 43 of them join MDW to TPA.
| Connecting at | MDW to hub, flights a day | Hub to TPA, flights a day | Track, km | Estimated, gate to gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham BHM | 1.43 | 1.43 | 1,659 | 4h 15m |
| Indianapolis IND | 2.71 | 1.86 | 1,612 | 4h 22m |
| Milwaukee MKE | 3.43 | 1.14 | 1,863 | 4h 24m |
| Orlando MCO | 6.14 | 1.29 | 1,725 | 4h 28m |
| Columbus CMH | 4.71 | 2.57 | 1,791 | 4h 37m |
| Chicago ORD | 0.57 | 6.86 | 1,656 | 4h 37m |
With 4.3 times a day on the nonstop, a connection here is a disruption plan rather than a routing, and it is listed because a closed runway or a cancellation wave is exactly when nobody has time to work it out.
43 airports connect the two ends on the scheduled network held here. The quickest of the dependable ones is Birmingham BHM, where the weaker of the two legs still runs about once a day.
Through BHM the routing covers 1,659 km against the 1,607 km nonstop track and takes about 4h 15m in the air and on the ground at the hub, allowing 60 minutes to connect at an airport of that size.
That is only 1h 42m more than the nonstop, which is close enough that a connection is worth taking when the nonstop is full or badly timed.
Behind it, Indianapolis IND at 4h 22m and Milwaukee MKE at 4h 24m hold the same connection, so a booking has three hubs to try before it has to wait for the nonstop.
If nothing suitable leaves Chicago, Chicago ORD is 25 km away by great circle and carries 295 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
If nothing suitable leaves Tampa, Orlando MCO is 130 km away by great circle and carries 177 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
Plan Chicago to Tampa yourself
The same tool the dispatchers use, open to anybody and free. It is loaded with this pair already. Change either end, add a stopover or a preferred airline, and it works out the connection, the transit and the door to door clock, with the real departures underneath. Put it on your own site if it is useful to you.
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Restrictions
Where this came from, and where to look next
- Carriers and frequencies: AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics, retrieved 2026-09-07. Average daily flights, not a timetable.
- Distances: great circle from published coordinates. They read short against a flown track, which is why the block time above applies a factor to them.
- Block and connection times: the same model the route calculator lower down this page runs, at the same rounding.
- Restrictions: the airport notes file, checked 2026-09-07.
- Industrial sites: public company information. Nothing here says or implies that any company named is a customer of any courier operator.
Who publishes this. OnBoard Courier is a placement desk in Dubai. An assignment is carried out by a vetted partner operator, with the desk as the single point of contact from the quote to the signature. This page exists because our own dispatchers need the answer for MDW to TPA in the twenty minutes before a promise is made, and a reference only one operator can read is not a reference. Free to read, quote and cite. Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
If you need something moved rather than looked up, the desk prices a hand carry in fifteen minutes.
More pairs through MDW and TPA: Detroit to Chicago, Phoenix to Chicago, Chicago to San Diego, Charlotte to Chicago, Indianapolis to Chicago, El Paso to Chicago, Chicago to Guadalajara, Chicago to Minneapolis.