Route reliability record
BWI→CLT
Baltimore to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,998
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 361 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,998 flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,809 at 84.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,937 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.90%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
84.7% on time across 1,809 flights
These figures cover 2,998 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BWI to CLT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 84.7% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 76.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 967 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,809 | 84.7% | 114 min | 1.88% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 967 | 76.7% | 59 min | 1.55% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 24 | 73.9% | 60 min | 4.17% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 140 | 69.2% | 112 min | 5.00% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 57 | 68.4% | 69 min | 0.00% | C+ |
American leads Southwest by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 30 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am635 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am712 flights88.7%
- 11am–2pm351 flights85.8%
- 2pm–5pm428 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm536 flights71.9%
- 8pm–5am336 flights63.0%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.0% on time, against 92.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 712 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 64.2% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 89.2%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 310 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.4%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 50,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 50,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 50,093 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 18,000 of the 50,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.90% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 361 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 76.5% on time across 2,996 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,998 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.
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 89.2% on time and July 64.2%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,937 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to CLT questions
How often is BWI to CLT delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.0% of the 2,998 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BWI to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 84.7% on time across 1,809 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 76.7%, a gap of 8 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 BWI to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.0%, 30 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 BWI to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 64.2% on time, compared with 89.2% in September. Across the year that is 25 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
- CLT to BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- American Airlines on-time record84.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. BWI to CLT and CLT to BWI are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.