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Planning a trip from Washington, D.C. to Chicago? KAYAK’s data-powered insights will help you find cheap flights. Learn the best time to fly, how early to book your ticket, and other tips to secure great prices.
Low season | January |
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High season | August |
Cheapest flight | $48 |
Find which airlines fly direct from Washington, D.C. to Chicago, which days they fly and book direct flights.
Direct departures
Washington, D.C. to Chicago
Monday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Tuesday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Wednesday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Thursday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Friday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Saturday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Sunday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Direct returns
Chicago to Washington, D.C.
Monday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Tuesday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Wednesday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Thursday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Friday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Saturday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Sunday
American Airlines, Southwest, United Airlines
American Airlines, Southwest, +1 more
Southwest is typically delayed, and it gets wearisome. It is no longer a discount airline and you get way less than you pay for when it comes to comfort and Ce.
Southwest is typically delayed, and it gets wearisome. It is no longer a discount airline and you get way less than you pay for when it comes to comfort and Ce.
We sat on the plane on the tarmac for 4 hours.
I'm not a fan of Southwest's model. I don't like the herding style of boarding.
Flight crew and cabin crew were great. I had to rearrange flights because my original flight was 3hrs delayed for weather, the rub is the flight I moved to boarded on time then we sat at the gate for 2 hours because scheduling stole our first officer for another flight, TWICE. Then our actual FO was an hour delayed. To make it worse my original flight went from a 3 hour delay to departing 15min EARLY. Just poor scheduling operations all around.
Bring back peanuts Take our drink orders when were all seated, especially after you switch to assigned seating.
Staff was far less than helpful at all times. Departure and arrival times mean nothing to Southwest. Extremely disappointed, will never fly with them again, and I’ll be sure to share my experience with all.
It is southwest seat was ok. Not the most comfortable seat
I’ve always loved Southwest. No issues at all. I was flying standby and the gate agent was extremely friendly and helpful. Boarding was smooth and I was able to get a window seat in the emergency exit row. Crew was fantastic! They were very professional and accommodating. We had to divert from our destination due to weather but the flight crew kept everyone at ease and informed us of all pertinent information. Excellent flight
The price of the tickets isn't matching the flight experience. No matter how long the flight is, you're only getting pretzels. The flight attendants looked unkept and over it.
Plz don't take away free bags and free seating
It was fine, definitely older planes with no charging or anything. There’s no entertainment set up on board, but it is nice that they allow you to access the in flight entertainment from your phone without having to pay for the Wi-Fi and they do offer free texting.
I liked that the flight was nonstop from ORD to CIU for $200 round trip.
While the staff was pleasant and helpful, the following observations are for your awareness. There was some delay on the tarmac on take off and landing. The paid lunch/food offerings were limited. Entertainment was only available on WiFi at a cost.
The first flight was better in terms of the aircraft.
Smooth flight. Boarding was chaotic. Could not hear the gate agent over the intercom. People were lined up in the wrong lines. Groups one and two were told to board through line one and group 3 through line 2. All very confusing. Once in the air, the flight was smooth. There was no entertainment option on this aircraft, even though it was a larger aircraft.
Overall poor for me I paid extra for seats with leg room and my regional flights exit row seats have less leg room then the others that's money that could have been saved and on my final flight home the flights air was not operating it was unbearably hot in the cabin I will be contacting United and filing a DOT complaint
There's just no way to sit fully upright and comfortably in these seats. There needs to be 2 more inches of room, and that's not something that only one person on the flight needs - the whole flight needs 2 more inches of room. If that means you sell 6 less seats, so be it. It's too close for anyone. Forcing people to pay for "premium" economy just to get "barely enough space to breathe" isn't really an answer to that.
The crew were very nice. The Chocolate is good and v there’s no entertainment. Thanks
The crew were very nice. I would have appreciated a pillow for comfort. I had a special meal that was sloppy, but the salad was great. Thanks
The plane was in Moline all night. Consequently, we assumed an on time departure at 8:15am. Unfortunately, and as is the normal case with United in Moline, we departed 2.5 hours late. When the crew came, it was discovered that there was very little heat in the plane. Seems this should have been checked hours before the crew arrived. Then when we boarded and the plane was to be de-iced, the United de-icing truck was not working! We awaited the American Airlines truck. All of this caused us to miss our connection in Chicago. My suggestion is never take United Airlines flight from Moline. We have been disappointed 80% of the time and have vowed to not take United again from Moline.
Most miserable flight ever. We waited almost 2 hours on the runway because the flight was oversold. American offered $1200 credit. Then there was some nonsense about weight distribution. Ridiculous. No food for 8 plus hours on the flight. I will be writing a letter.
The flight was 2 hour delayed, otherwise everything was excellent. The delay was due to the hourly limit requirement so given that as a reason, I'm happy with the flight!
Not sure the logic of the boarding in Groups. I was loaded first on the aisle. Then the guy in the middle. Then the guy by the window. Constantly holding up the other people boarding behind them with us blocking the aisle and this happened in most of the other rows
To start, I’d like to say that every American Airline personnel I interacted with on the ground, especially flight crew, was very friendly and did their best to help me out. Despite this, however, my experience with the airline was an entire mess. The 7:19 PM flight was heavily delayed due to weather, and pushed to 10:30 AM the next morning. Because of this, I had to spend the night inside of the airport. At some point later in the night, I got an email saying that the flight had been canceled. I called the support number, and the representative on the other line told me that the flight was still on and that I didn’t need to rebook. The next morning, no one came to the gate to open the door for the crew until almost 11 AM. By this time the flight crew had been waiting for over an hour, and they had called management to get someone to open the door for them multiple times. Around 11:30, the gate screen had changed to a different flight. I ended up buying a last minute ticket with Southwest airline just to get to Chicago, because the next flight with American wasn’t until 7:19 pm that day. Now, earlier that morning my suitcase had been sent ahead of me to ORD. I went to baggage claim to ask them if I could have my suitcase forwarded to where I was staying. The representative at SDF baggage claim said they could and put the claim in for me. As I was going back through TSA, I got an email that the airline had found my suitcase, but the next step was to send it BACK to SDF. I called the airline support number again, and I made it clear that my suitcase needed to stay in Chicago and to not come back to SDF. The representative told me that they would hold my suitcase at ORD and that it wasn’t going to be forwarded anywhere. Once I got there, I found that they had loaded my suitcase onto a plane to send it back to SDF. Thankfully, I had gotten to the baggage claim counter in time for them to put in a request to bring my suitcase back up. My refund with the airline is processing already, but because of this entire experience and miscommunication at every turn of the way, I will not book with American Airlines in the future.
The plane was late and then sat on the runway for almost 45 minutes before taking off.
Crew professional. Easy bag drop off. On time. Good entertainment.
Everything was great. Boarding, early departure, early arrival, and deplaning were smooth. Smooth flight.
Per usual, flight status, staff courtesy and professionalism were excellent
The only thing is if Wi-Fi is available after you land and taxi to the gate. It takes forever to get to the gate, and having the Wi-Fi continue would be great to bide the time at least 5 minutes before you arrive at the entrance. That is my only comment; otherwise, everything was good.
Had to wait on pilot and crew to depart and had to wait to arrive at the gate because they only had 2 crews working. Delays, delays....Planes just keep getting smaller and tighter and they nickle and dime for everything. When will an airline actually wake up and make flying more enjoyable?
Boarding was a breeze, however, two of the flights that I boarded with Spirit did not have Wi-Fi available.
Seats uncomfortable, hard to check luggage, etc. It was like the last flight out of Hanoi
Need screens for tv/movies. Seats are more cramped than any other airlines. Seats are hard. They don’t recline. And in flight time should not be used for sales pitches.
Good experience except for the drunk woman who was with a child. Sad
The ease of booking the flight was very good. Speaking with customer service was also good. However, the crew people are unfriendly and unwelcoming which I found this as unprofessional. As far as comfort it was mediocre. This was my first time flying Spirit and I chose them because of the flight times met my needs and my budget. However, I would be reluctant to fly on Spirit again. In addition, if the crew were more friendly and at least appeared somewhat happy and welcoming personally it would probably make the experience of flying with Spirit better.
While on the flight we had a delay and had to sit on the plane while maintenance fixed it. It’s ended up taking an hour and a half longer to leave than expected. I had an unruly passenger sitting behind me that vaped during the flight and was rude and loud for the majority of the flight.
Spirit is by far the worst airline to travel with, period. Seats are cardboard, flight attendants need anger management and if you ask for water, you’re basically a criminal. I don’t care how much it costs but I will travel with an airline who actually cares about their customers. Oh and one more thing, the next time your gate agent puts his foot on someone’s baggage's scale, I hope they get what’s coming next, a viral video of your scams. You suck Spirit, do better.
I mean, it’s Spirit. But it was frustrating to have our flight canceled, get bumped to a later flight, and then Spirit was unwilling to check our bag until 4 hours before our flight… tell us we could not sit in the waiting area’s chairs… and really negative experience getting checked in and dropping the bag.
Not having it be changed after we bought the flight tickets from a direct flight getting in at a reasonable time to a connecting flight red eye of 9 hours, so that we would lose our 35 dollars in nonrefundable insurance would've been great! Our country really does need low-cost carrier options, but this type of "service" ain't it. Fortunately, had a little better success with them flying to and from San Juan PR last month at least.
terrible service, no room for a dog underfoot, a broken chair that is impossible to sit on and all this costs a lot of money
Book with frontier airlines with the mentality that they'll cancel your flight, kick you off and lose your luggage. Anything besides that is a win. Compare prices with other airlines (to include luggage) and if frontier is still worth it, book it but know all of their policies.
You get what you pay for nothing essentially but a hard uncomfortable seat that doesn’t recline and kids screaming all around you and chaotic boarding and limited check bag weight allowance when compared to other airlines
I never got to experience the flight because they delayed my first flight and I missed this one. Then Frontier didn't want to help me rebook a flight to get me to my final destination.
The Boarding process in Denver was chaotic, and since the line was so long, we were lined up very far from the gate. If there were any announcements from the gate staff, we didn't hear them. The flight attendants were spectacular. The only negative part of the flight was sitting by a 2 1/2 year old who was unruly and unfortunately had parents that matched his behaviors. Also, the restaurants in Denver on the E concourse, they didn't have food (passengers could only order 1 item on the entire menu) or the restaurants had 12-14 people waiting for orders to be prepared and another 6 people waiting to order. If you have a layover in Denver and need to grab food, be prepared to visit the shops with pre-packaged sandwiches, or you can visit another concourse but it may take a while to transit throughout the airport.
I liked the turn-style feature at gate 209B at LAX. Very efficient process. The gate staff also made several, clearly directed announcements so I felt very informed.
Although an hour and a half early was told by staff at check in they had overbooked and could not check us in for the flight.
The crew was delayed because they came on another flight that was delayed due to weather 10pm flight left at 1.30 am The airline made no effort to align alternate crew
Plane was down graded and I lost my uncharged exit row with more leg room. No mention or offer of refund from podium. Flight attendant was nice to explain this happens often and that I could request a refund via online form submission. I did this and have heard nothing back.
Worst airline experience. They were rude and kept changing our seats and/or giving our seats away so our family didn’t get to sit with each other. Almost everyone we dealt with at both airports with this airline was rude. The app kept giving us wrong information making things take longer. Dealing with them before TSA can take close to an hour…longer than I’ve ever had to deal with before. Never using this airline again.
Horrendous. I do not recommend Frontier. The passengers lack manners and decency, and the flight attendants lack professionalism. If I wasn’t in a bind to fly with 48 hours notice for a job interview, I would not have selected a flight with Frontier and I never plan to fly with them in the future.
Transportation mode | Average price | Average duration |
---|---|---|
Flights | $716 | 2h 00m |
Trains | $281 | 19h 15m |
Buses | $158 | 21h 08m |
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