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Flying from Dallas-Fort Worth to Chicago?

Add a departure date and see which side gets the sun.

About this route

Dallas-Fort WorthChicago

A short flight within United States. Your watch stays put on arrival.

Route type Domestic
Distance 1,291 km / 802 mi
Distance class Short-haul
Direction Northeastbound
Est. duration About 1h 55m
Time change No change

Departing from

DFW

Dallas Fort Worth International Airport

Location Dallas-Fort Worth, United States
Time zone CDT · UTC−5
Current time

Big, flat, and spread wide

Dallas-Fort Worth is two cities and a wide tangle of suburbs across the flat north Texas plain, with the airport set between them. It is one of the most car-dependent big metros in the country: the freeways are broad, the distances long, and transit thin outside the centers. Dallas leans corporate and polished while Fort Worth keeps more of its western character, and most of the region is the sprawl in between.

Surrounding hubs

1,393 km / 866 mi
1,493 km / 928 mi
362 km / 225 mi

Arriving at

ORD

Chicago O'Hare International Airport

Location Chicago, United States
Time zone CDT · UTC−5
Current time

The Windy City

Chicago lines the southwest shore of Lake Michigan, a flat, gridded city with one of the great American downtowns at its heart. Elevated trains and a deep commuter-rail network make the core genuinely transit-friendly, and the lakefront ties the city together. Beyond downtown and the north-side neighborhoods, Chicago spreads into a huge belt of suburbs. Winters are hard, and the wind off the lake lives up to the nickname.

Surrounding hubs

976 km / 606 mi
983 km / 611 mi
376 km / 234 mi
How it works

Find out which side of the plane to sit on.

Pick your airports, set your departure time, and you're done.

We calculate the sun's position based on your flight path and departure time, then tell you which side of the plane gets direct sun and which stays shaded. No guessing, just math.

01

Enter your flight

Pick your departure and arrival airports and set your departure time at the departure airport. FlightSide estimates the duration and you can adjust it if you know the exact schedule.

02

We track the sun along your route

Your flight path is broken into hundreds of points. At each one we check where the sun is and which side of the plane it faces.

03

You get a recommendation

Which side of the plane to sit on, left or right, depending on whether you'd rather avoid the sun or enjoy it. The percentages and the map are there if you want to see why.

Want to go deeper? Accuracy, edge cases, polar routes — see the FAQ →

Latest journal

Notes from the product.

Small updates, route observations, and clearer explanations for how the app keeps evolving.