Route reliability record
BUF→BWI
Buffalo to Baltimore
- Flights
- 1,728
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 281 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 55 minutes. That rests on 1,728 BUF to BWI flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly BUF to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 89.8%, against 87.0% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 97 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,697 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.50%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
87.0% on time across 1,728 flights
These figures cover 1,728 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BUF to BWI
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,728 | 87.0% | 53 min | 1.50% | A |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Buffalo 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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BUF → BWIBuffalo to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 85.7% | 87.0% | 1.50% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ROC → BWIRochester to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 81.3% | 82.3% | 1.27% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. ROC → DCARochester to Washington | PSA Airlines | 58.9% | 63.5% | 7.20% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. BUF → DCABuffalo to Washington | PSA Airlines | 58.2% | 62.2% | 6.37% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am399 flights95.5%
- 8am–11am390 flights91.7%
- 11am–2pm391 flights88.1%
- 2pm–5pm369 flights80.8%
- 5pm–8pm178 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.5% of the time, against 66.7% for the evening window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 399 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BUF 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 BUF to BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.7%, a wide gap of 28.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.5%
- 8–11am91.7%
- 11am–2pm88.1%
- 2–5pm80.8%
- 5–8pm66.7%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 1,728 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
July is the worst month at 82.7% on time, 11 points below September, the best at 93.2%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 154 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 83.1%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 47 to one. The split is drawn from 11,623 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,288 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.50% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 281 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.9% on time across 1,727 flights, 11 points below 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,728 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: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 66.7% on time against 95.5% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 29 points is the largest single thing you control here. Southwest Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 1,697 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BUF to BWI questions
How often is BUF to BWI delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.0% of the 1,728 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is BUF to BWI compared with the rest of the country?
87.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BUF to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.7%, 29 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 BUF to BWI?
July is the weakest month at 82.7% on time, compared with 93.2% in September. Across the year that is 11 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 BUF — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- BUF to ORD, a related route74.4%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.2%
- BUF to MCO, a related route75.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record87.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. BUF to BWI and BWI to BUF 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.