Route reliability record
BWI→CLT
Baltimore to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,948
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 361 mi
- Carriers
- 5
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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,948 BWI to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,780 at 84.6% on time.
Best time to fly BWI to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.9%, against 80.8% 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
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,891 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.76%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
84.6% on time across 1,780 flights
These figures cover 2,948 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 CLT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 84.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 75.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 965 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 | 1,780 | 84.6% | 93 min | 1.57% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 76.9% | 45 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 965 | 75.5% | 53 min | 1.55% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 163 | 71.4% | 98 min | 5.52% | C− |
American leads Southwest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Baltimore to Charlotte
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BWI → CLTBaltimore to Charlotte | American Airlines | 83.3% | 84.6% | 1.57% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. IAD → CLTWashington to Charlotte | American Airlines | 81.4% | 83.0% | 1.87% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. IAD → CLTWashington to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 81.1% | 83.8% | 3.21% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. IAD → CLTWashington to Charlotte | Republic Airways | 79.1% | 81.3% | 2.65% | 8pm–5am, Wed | — |
| 5. DCA → CLTWashington to Charlotte | American Airlines | 77.3% | 79.8% | 3.19% | 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 32 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am633 flights93.4%
- 8am–11am632 flights89.0%
- 11am–2pm335 flights87.5%
- 2pm–5pm495 flights71.0%
- 5pm–8pm482 flights73.5%
- 8pm–5am371 flights61.9%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.9% on time, against 93.4% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 633 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI to CLT 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 CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 61.9%, a wide gap of 31.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.4%
- 8–11am89.0%
- 11am–2pm87.5%
- 2–5pm71.0%
- 5–8pm73.5%
- 8pm–5am61.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 68.6% on time, 21 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. October was the busiest month here, with 288 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.6%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 42,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%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. Across 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 25 to one. The split is drawn from 42,114 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.76% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.0% 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 a little over an hour, 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 76.9% on time across 2,947 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,948 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 CLT 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 89.2% on time and July 68.6%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,891 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.2% of the 2,948 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BWI to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 84.6% on time across 1,780 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 75.5%, a gap of 9 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 93.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.9%, 32 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 68.6% on time, compared with 89.2% in September. Across the year that is 21 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
- American Airlines on BWI to CLT84.6%
- Southwest Airlines on BWI to CLT75.5%
- Frontier Airlines on BWI to CLT71.4%
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- American Airlines on-time record84.6%
- PSA Airlines on-time record76.9%
- 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 CLT and CLT 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.