KMDW · MDW · Chicago, Illinois
Planes near MDW: live flight tracking at Chicago Midway International
Chicago Midway International (MDW / KMDW) serves Chicago, Illinois, United States. A compact city field surrounded on all sides by streets and houses.
The live map
Aircraft the volunteer receiver network can currently hear around Chicago. The frame is fixed on the field; tap or click an aircraft to open its full details.
Nothing here is filtered. Military aircraft, aircraft in the FAA's LADD privacy programme and aircraft using temporary addresses all appear the same way anything else does. Open the full map to pan, zoom and switch layers.
Movements we watched happen
Snapshot written . This page refreshes by itself while it is open.
These are transitions the receiver network actually observed at MDW, each with the time it was seen. Nothing here is guessed from a timetable.
Why there may be fewer departures than arrivals
A departure is only counted once a receiver has seen the aircraft on the ground here first. That guard stops us inventing takeoffs for aircraft that merely flew overhead, and it costs us real ones: hearing an aircraft sitting on an airport surface needs a receiver with line of sight to that surface, which is the hardest reception there is. An arrival only needs the aircraft to have been seen airborne, and airborne coverage is very good.
So at any airport without a clear view of the ground, this list will show fewer departures than actually happened. If you see more arrivals than departures below, read that as a fact about where the antennas are, not about the airport.
| Time | Movement | Flight | Aircraft |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02:57 UTC | Arrival | SWA1165 | B38M · N8945Q |
| 02:50 UTC | Departure | FFT1887 | A320 · N236FR |
| 02:46 UTC | Arrival | SWA2206 | N8933Q |
| 02:32 UTC | Arrival | SWA144 | B737 · N461WN |
4 movements in the current recording window.
What appears to be inbound and outbound right now
Where the aircraft in range right now are most likely heading, worked out from their callsigns rather than watched happening.
How this list is built
We take the aircraft the receiver network can currently hear, read the callsign each one is broadcasting, and look that callsign up in an index of the routes it has actually flown before. An entry means this callsign's most commonly observed route ends at MDW. That is a good guide to where a flight is going. It is not a flight plan: nobody has told us today's routing, and we would rather say that than dress an inference up as a schedule.
The consequences are worth knowing. A diversion or an unusual routing will be listed wrong. A charter, a positioning leg, or any flight the index has not seen before is missing entirely. You will occasionally see an aircraft here sitting on the ground on the far side of a continent, which is the method showing its working rather than hiding it. There are no scheduled times or arrival estimates on this page because neither can be computed honestly from what we hold.
For gates, delays and cancellations the airline and the airport are authoritative. This page is for what is actually in the air.
Inbound nearest 20 of 30
| Flight | From | Altitude | Ground speed | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DAL1076A320 · N361NW | AtlantaKATL / ATL | 8,950 ft | 282 kt | 58 nmSE of the field |
| SWA233B38M · N8832H | AtlantaKATL / ATL | 37,000 ft | 472 kt | 143 nmENE of the field |
| EJM97CL35 · N972SC | HoustonKSGR / SGR | 41,000 ft | 492 kt | 185 nmE of the field |
| SWA3449B738 · N8606C | RenoKRNO / RNO | 13,225 ft | 348 kt | 236 nmSW of the field |
| SWA3202B737 · N467WN | PortlandKPDX / PDX | 21,200 ft | 386 kt | 278 nmWNW of the field |
| SWA1342B737 · N220WN | Providence/WarwickKPVD / PVD | on the ground | 17 kt | 303 nmNW of the field |
| SWA1200B38M · N8879Q | ColumbusKCMH / CMH | 28,000 ft | 465 kt | 361 nmSSW of the field |
| SWA4762B737 · N7751A | OrlandoKMCO / MCO | 2,825 ft | 165 kt | 368 nmW of the field |
| FFT2291A20N · N372FR | AtlantaKATL / ATL | on the ground | 0 kt | 514 nmSSE of the field |
| SWA4332B738 · N8572X | Fort MyersKRSW / RSW | 41,000 ft | 482 kt | 627 nmW of the field |
| SWA4202B38M · N8719Q | PhiladelphiaKPHL / PHL | 12,100 ft | 349 kt | 692 nmSW of the field |
| SWA2763B738 · N8548P | HoustonKHOU / HOU | 34,000 ft | 461 kt | 707 nmSSE of the field |
| SWA2241N8948Q | NashvilleKBNA / BNA | 41,000 ft | 491 kt | 719 nmSSW of the field |
| SWA3460B737 · N7868K | RochesterKROC / ROC | on the ground | 7 kt | 776 nmW of the field |
| SWA1598B38M · N8745K | DenverKDEN / DEN | on the ground | 0 kt | 776 nmW of the field |
| SWA3415B737 · N257WN | PortlandKPWM / PWM | 19,950 ft | 388 kt | 821 nmW of the field |
| SWA2569B38M · N8981Q | Kansas CityKMCI / MCI | 5,500 ft | 244 kt | 847 nmSW of the field |
| SWA4033B38M · N8774Q | TampaKTPA / TPA | 40,000 ft | 454 kt | 861 nmSSE of the field |
| SWA1603B738 · N8570W | DenverKDEN / DEN | 41,000 ft | 471 kt | 865 nmWSW of the field |
| SWA3769B38M · N8863Q | SacramentoKSMF / SMF | 37,000 ft | 452 kt | 876 nmSSE of the field |
Outbound nearest 20 of 22
| Flight | To | Altitude | Ground speed | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| N504LHEC35 | KJOT | 900 ft | 35 kt | 7 nmE of the field |
| FFT1887A320 · N236FR | Dallas-Fort WorthKDFW / DFW | 18,500 ft | 408 kt | 40 nmSW of the field |
| N863LHEC30 | KPPO | 1,975 ft | 132 kt | 53 nmESE of the field |
| SWA4975B737 · N487WN | BostonKBOS / BOS | 15,850 ft | 366 kt | 387 nmSSW of the field |
| SWA2659B737 · N7861J | BuffaloKBUF / BUF | 38,000 ft | 445 kt | 447 nmS of the field |
| SWA1579B38M · N8802Q | MinneapolisKMSP / MSP | 38,000 ft | 428 kt | 461 nmWSW of the field |
| SWA2710B38M · N8903H | OaklandKOAK / OAK | 26,150 ft | 468 kt | 510 nmE of the field |
| SWA2765B737 · N449WN | DenverKDEN / DEN | 2,850 ft | 198 kt | 526 nmESE of the field |
| XSR722CL35 · N722AS | Kansas CityKMKC / MKC | 11,825 ft | 311 kt | 535 nmWSW of the field |
| COL200N200JC | KJVL | 34,000 ft | 414 kt | 543 nmENE of the field |
| SWA2777B738 · N8679A | Fort LauderdaleKFLL / FLL | 29,125 ft | 453 kt | 603 nmSSW of the field |
| SWA4407B38M · N8927Q | Kansas CityKMCI / MCI | 38,000 ft | 443 kt | 618 nmWSW of the field |
| SWA4496B738 · N8623F | WashingtonKDCA / DCA | 39,000 ft | 480 kt | 649 nmS of the field |
| SWA4221B738 · N8557Q | Raleigh/DurhamKRDU / RDU | 24,675 ft | 441 kt | 657 nmSW of the field |
| SWA3586B38M · N8895Q | PhoenixKPHX / PHX | 21,300 ft | 434 kt | 793 nmSSW of the field |
| SWA2794N8957Q | Las VegasKLAS / LAS | 36,000 ft | 465 kt | 973 nmWSW of the field |
| SWA1813N8924Q | ClevelandKCLE / CLE | 4,700 ft | 237 kt | 1,009 nmSSE of the field |
| SWA758B737 · N258WN | BuffaloKBUF / BUF | 4,750 ft | 239 kt | 1,242 nmWSW of the field |
| SWA4716B38M · N8901Q | BostonKBOS / BOS | on the ground | 9 kt | 1,318 nmW of the field |
| SWA4594B38M · N8759Q | ColumbusKCMH / CMH | on the ground | 0 kt | 1,499 nmWSW of the field |
About Chicago Midway International
- ICAO codeKMDW
- IATA codeMDW
- ServesChicago
- RegionIllinois, United States
- Coordinates41.786°N, 87.752°W
Midway sits southwest of the Chicago Loop, entirely enclosed by the street grid. It is physically small compared with O'Hare and its approaches are correspondingly tight, which makes for a very different picture on the map even though the two fields are a few minutes apart. Almost everything here is domestic.
Watch the two Chicago fields together. Midway's traffic threads underneath and around O'Hare's, and the altitude column is the clearest way to see how the two flows are kept apart.
What the codes mean
Airports carry two identifiers and they are not interchangeable.
MDW is the IATA code: three letters, the one printed on a
boarding pass and a baggage tag, assigned for commercial purposes and reused across
the world without any geographic logic.
KMDW is the ICAO code: four letters, used by air traffic
control, flight planning systems and trackers like this one. Its first
letter, K, marks
the contiguous United States, because ICAO allocates the code space by region.
The callsigns in the lists above are a third thing again. A callsign is what the crew typed into the transponder for this leg, so it changes flight by flight, while the registration and the 24-bit hex address stay with the airframe. When a callsign and a registration disagree, the registration is usually the more reliable of the two.
How to read the numbers
Altitude is pressure altitude, which is what the aircraft's air data system reads with a standard pressure setting. It is not height above the ground and it is not always the altitude the crew is flying to. Near Chicago that gap is most obvious on approach, when a tracker can show a figure that does not match what is on the flight deck.
Ground speed is speed across the earth, not through the air. A strong tailwind can add a hundred knots or more to it without the aircraft flying any faster, which is why two aircraft at the same level going opposite ways can show wildly different numbers. Track is the direction of travel over the ground, which is not the direction the nose is pointing when there is any crosswind at all.
Aircraft go missing from this map for reasons that have nothing to do with the aircraft. Reception is line of sight, so terrain and distance cut it off abruptly; a good deal of light aviation in the United States broadcasts on 978 MHz rather than 1090 MHz; and plenty of aircraft, including gliders and older light types, carry no ADS-B at all and are not required to. How ADS-B works covers all of that properly.
Other airports on the map
The nearest fields with their own live page:
