Route reliability record
ATL→BWI
Atlanta to Baltimore
- Flights
- 5,402
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 577 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 5,402 ATL to BWI flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,790 at 78.7% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.6%, against 75.2% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.7% on time across 2,790 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,255 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.26%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
78.7% on time across 2,790 flights
These figures cover 5,402 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to BWI
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 78.7% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 61.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 973 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 84 | 80.2% | 81 min | 2.38% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,790 | 78.7% | 57 min | 2.04% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,555 | 77.0% | 61 min | 1.93% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 973 | 61.6% | 73 min | 3.39% | D− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 3.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to BWI
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
- Delta 292817:5969.9% · 349 flights
- Delta 271111:0089.3% · 341 flights
- Delta 259023:0579.0% · 332 flights
- Delta 80108:5590.2% · 331 flights
- Delta 126715:3169.6% · 328 flights
- Delta 279913:5578.6% · 301 flights
- Delta 125719:3068.5% · 296 flights
- Delta 159207:3587.9% · 261 flights
- Frontier 251005:3072.7% · 252 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to Baltimore
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → IADAtlanta to Washington | United Airlines | 80.8% | 81.6% | 0.92% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 632 09:35 |
| 2. ATL → BWIAtlanta to Baltimore | Delta Air Lines | 77.1% | 78.7% | 2.04% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 801 08:55 |
| 3. ATL → IADAtlanta to Washington | Delta Air Lines | 75.7% | 77.8% | 2.73% | 5am–8am, Thu | DL 1444 10:00 |
| 4. ATL → BWIAtlanta to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 75.5% | 77.0% | 1.93% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. ATL → DCAAtlanta to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 69.2% | 70.4% | 1.67% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am641 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am794 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm807 flights82.6%
- 2pm–5pm1,321 flights70.7%
- 5pm–8pm833 flights64.9%
- 8pm–5am1,006 flights64.8%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.8% on time, against 90.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,321 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to BWI by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ATL to BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 64.8%, a wide gap of 25.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.3%
- 8–11am86.4%
- 11am–2pm82.6%
- 2–5pm70.7%
- 5–8pm64.9%
- 8pm–5am64.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 59.4% on time, 29 points below September, the best at 88.1%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 501 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.8%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 82,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 82,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 81,784 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 30,000 of the 82,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.26% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.46%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 577 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.9% on time across 5,405 flights, 5 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 5,402 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in BWI after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.1% on time and July 59.4%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 5,255 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to BWI questions
How often is ATL to BWI delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.8% of the 5,402 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to BWI?
Delta Air Lines leads at 78.7% on time across 2,790 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 61.6%, a gap of 17 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.8%, 26 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on ATL to BWI?
July is the weakest month at 59.4% on time, compared with 88.1% in September. Across the year that is 29 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- BWI to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to BWI78.7%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to BWI77.0%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to BWI61.6%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- MCO to BWI, a related route76.1%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record80.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ATL to BWI and BWI to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.