Route reliability record
BWI→BDL
Baltimore to Hartford
- Flights
- 1,723
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 283 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,723 BWI to BDL flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly BWI to BDL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.7% of the time and Friday flights 87.4%, against 81.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,685 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.21%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
81.2% on time across 1,723 flights
These figures cover 1,723 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 BWI to BDL
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 | 1,723 | 81.2% | 55 min | 2.21% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Baltimore to Hartford
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. IAD → BDLWashington to Hartford | United Airlines | 84.8% | 85.8% | 1.17% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 444 22:25 |
| 2. BWI → BDLBaltimore to Hartford | Southwest Airlines | 79.4% | 81.2% | 2.21% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. DCA → BDLWashington to Hartford | Republic Airways | 72.3% | 74.0% | 2.24% | 8am–11am, Sun | — |
| 4. DCA → BDLWashington to Hartford | PSA Airlines | 62.3% | 67.8% | 8.13% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am329 flights95.7%
- 8am–11am321 flights90.5%
- 11am–2pm168 flights87.1%
- 2pm–5pm324 flights79.1%
- 5pm–8pm221 flights70.6%
- 8pm–5am360 flights65.1%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.7% of the time, against 65.1% for the overnight window. That is 31 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 360 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI to BDL 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 BWI to BDL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.1%, a wide gap of 30.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.7%
- 8–11am90.5%
- 11am–2pm87.1%
- 2–5pm79.1%
- 5–8pm70.6%
- 8pm–5am65.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
August is the worst month at 72.1% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 90.4%. 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, Friday is the strongest day at 87.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 76.6%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 17,490 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,564 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.21% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.7% 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 283 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 runs 82.6% on time across 1,724 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,723 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 BDL 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 90.4% on time and August 72.1%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,685 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to BDL questions
How often is BWI to BDL delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.8% of the 1,723 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is BWI to BDL compared with the rest of the country?
81.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BWI to BDL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.1%, 31 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 August delays on BWI to BDL?
August is the weakest month at 72.1% on time, compared with 90.4% in September. Across the year that is 18 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
- BDL to BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ORD to BDL, a related route74.5%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.2%
- 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. BWI to BDL and BDL to BWI 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.