The sector is held by NetJets Aviation and Southwest Airlines.
Airport pair · hand carry reference
PHL Philadelphia to MDW Chicago
Philadelphia International, the United States, to Midway International, the United States. Computed from the scheduled network held on 2026-09-07.
- Nonstop
- 5.3 times a day
- Great circle
- 1,073 km
- Block, estimated
- 1h 52m
- Door to door
- 8h 37m
What PHL to MDW looks like
The PHL to MDW sector, the carriers on it and the flying time, before anything is promised to anybody.
Philadelphia PHL to Chicago MDW is a short sector of 1,073 km by great circle, flown nonstop 5.3 times a day.
At the cruise speed this site models for 1,073 km, 830 km an hour, and thirty minutes of taxi at the two ends, the flight blocks at about 1h 52m.
Philadelphia PHL is a major hub in the network held here, 171 scheduled destinations and 527.5 departures a day. Chicago MDW has 208 destinations and 305.1 departures a day.
Chicago is one hour behind of Philadelphia 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 PHL to MDW from the scheduled route statistics, both directions, with the operating carriers named.
| Direction | Flights a day | Flights a week | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHL to MDW | 5.29 | 37 | NetJets Aviation, Southwest Airlines |
| MDW to PHL | 5.14 | 36 | Southwest Airlines |
Two carriers hold the sector, NetJets Aviation and Southwest Airlines, which gives a missed departure somewhere to go without leaving the nonstop.
At 5.3 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 73 departures a week on PHL 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 1h 52m block time on PHL 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 PHL | 90 min | 1h 30m |
| At PHL before departure | 180 min | 4h 30m |
| PHL to MDW in the air, estimated | 112 min | 6h 22m |
| Formalities at MDW | 90 min | 7h 52m |
| Delivery run in Chicago | 45 min | 8h 37m |
| Door to door | 517 min | 8h 37m |
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 PHL to MDW is 8h 37m.
A courier who leaves Philadelphia at 09:00 local is on the ground in Chicago at about 09:52 local and at the door by 12:07 the same day.
Working backwards from a six in the evening handover in Chicago, the last useful departure from Philadelphia is around 14:53 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 PHL to MDW.
| Connecting at | PHL to hub, flights a day | Hub to MDW, flights a day | Track, km | Estimated, gate to gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milwaukee MKE | 3.43 | 3.71 | 1,238 | 3h 36m |
| Washington DC DCA | 2.86 | 6.71 | 1,156 | 3h 46m |
| Cleveland CLE | 6 | 4.57 | 1,075 | 3h 49m |
| Pittsburgh PIT | 6.14 | 3.43 | 1,076 | 3h 50m |
| Indianapolis IND | 6.43 | 2.57 | 1,205 | 3h 50m |
| Detroit DTW | 10.86 | 6.14 | 1,095 | 3h 51m |
With 5.3 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.
39 airports connect the two ends on the scheduled network held here. The quickest of the dependable ones is Milwaukee MKE, where the weaker of the two legs still runs 3.4 times a day.
Through MKE the routing covers 1,238 km against the 1,073 km nonstop track and takes about 3h 36m 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 44m more than the nonstop, which is close enough that a connection is worth taking when the nonstop is full or badly timed.
Behind it, Washington DC DCA at 3h 46m and Cleveland CLE at 3h 49m hold the same connection, so a booking has three hubs to try before it has to wait for the nonstop.
If nothing suitable leaves Philadelphia, Newark EWR is 129 km away by great circle and carries 201 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 Philadelphia 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.
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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 PHL 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 PHL and MDW: 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.