The sector is held by Southwest Airlines.
Airport pair · hand carry reference
MCO Orlando to MDW Chicago
Orlando International, the United States, to Midway International, the United States. Computed from the scheduled network held on 2026-09-07.
- Nonstop
- 6.9 times a day
- Great circle
- 1,595 km
- Block, estimated
- 2h 32m
- Door to door
- 9h 17m
What MCO to MDW looks like
The MCO to MDW sector, the carriers on it and the flying time, before anything is promised to anybody.
Orlando MCO to Chicago MDW is a medium haul sector of 1,595 km by great circle, flown nonstop 6.9 times a day.
At the cruise speed this site models for 1,595 km, 830 km an hour, and thirty minutes of taxi at the two ends, the flight blocks at about 2h 32m.
Orlando MCO is a major hub in the network held here, 177 scheduled destinations and 539.2 departures a day. Chicago MDW has 208 destinations and 305.1 departures a day.
Chicago is one hour behind of Orlando 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 MCO to MDW from the scheduled route statistics, both directions, with the operating carriers named.
| Direction | Flights a day | Flights a week | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| MCO to MDW | 6.86 | 48 | Southwest Airlines |
| MDW to MCO | 6.14 | 43 | 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 6.9 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 91 departures a week on MCO to MDW, 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 32m block time on MCO to MDW. Change any of them in the tool further down and the total moves with them.
| Stage | Allowed | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|
| Collection and the run to MCO | 90 min | 1h 30m |
| At MCO before departure | 180 min | 4h 30m |
| MCO to MDW in the air, estimated | 152 min | 7h 02m |
| Formalities at MDW | 90 min | 8h 32m |
| Delivery run in Chicago | 45 min | 9h 17m |
| Door to door | 557 min | 9h 17m |
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 MCO to MDW is 9h 17m.
A courier who leaves Orlando at 09:00 local is on the ground in Chicago at about 10:32 local and at the door by 12:47 the same day.
Working backwards from a six in the evening handover in Chicago, the last useful departure from Orlando is around 14:13 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. 39 of them join MCO to MDW.
| Connecting at | MCO to hub, flights a day | Hub to MDW, flights a day | Track, km | Estimated, gate to gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham BHM | 2 | 1.29 | 1,690 | 4h 18m |
| Indianapolis IND | 5.71 | 2.57 | 1,597 | 4h 20m |
| Milwaukee MKE | 4.29 | 3.71 | 1,849 | 4h 23m |
| Tampa TPA | 1.29 | 4.14 | 1,737 | 4h 29m |
| Memphis MEM | 1.29 | 2.29 | 1,874 | 4h 32m |
| Columbus CMH | 4.57 | 4.71 | 1,749 | 4h 34m |
With 6.9 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.
39 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 1,690 km against the 1,595 km nonstop track and takes about 4h 18m 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 46m 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 20m and Milwaukee MKE at 4h 23m hold the same connection, so a booking has three hubs to try before it has to wait for the nonstop.
If nothing suitable leaves Orlando, Tampa TPA is 130 km away by great circle and carries 130 scheduled destinations of its own, which is usually a shorter road transfer than a lost day.
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.
Plan Orlando to Chicago 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.
min
min
min
min
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 MCO to MDW 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 MCO and MDW: Orlando to Atlanta, Orlando to Boston, Detroit to Orlando, Seattle to Orlando, Miami to Orlando, Houston to Orlando, Orlando to Sao Paulo, Orlando to Bogota.