Carrier route record

WNBWI→CLT

Southwest Airlines · Baltimore to Charlotte

Flights: 965
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 33%
Carriers: 5

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on BWI to CLT 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 roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 965 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on BWI to CLT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 948 completed flights

Avg delay

53 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.55%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

80.8%

Every carrier on BWI to CLT, 2,948 flights

These figures cover 965 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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

Southwest against every carrier on BWI to CLT

Southwest flew 965 of the 2,948 flights on BWI to CLT, about 33% of it. Its 75.5% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to Frontier at 71.4%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on BWI to CLT
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 (this page)	965	75.5%	53 min	1.55%	B
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	163	71.4%	98 min	5.52%	C−

Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.

Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 33 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am—
8am–11am359 flights90.1%
11am–2pm39 flights86.8%
2pm–5pm177 flights68.8%
5pm–8pm223 flights69.8%
8pm–5am167 flights56.6%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.6% on time, against 90.1% for the 8am–11am 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 359 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on BWI to CLT through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.January best, July worst

July is the worst month at 58.8% on time, 31 points below January, the best at 89.7%. 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 92 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.4%, a spread of 19 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Southwest on BWI to CLT runs when it is late

Southwest on BWI to CLT often beats the schedule: 245 of 948 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 232 late arrivals split 87 under half an hour, 78 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 67 an hour or more.

15+ min early245 flights25.8%
Within 15 min471 flights49.7%
15–29 min late87 flights9.2%
30–59 min late78 flights8.2%
1–2 hours late48 flights5.1%
2+ hours late19 flights2.0%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 948 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 309 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 100 still arrived on time. 23 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for Southwest on BWI to CLT

The latest arrival of the period was on 2 August 2026, 4 hours 33 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.

The latest arrivals of Southwest on BWI to CLT in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
2 August 2026	4 hours 33 minutes	Carrier
6 September 2025	4 hours 8 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
2 August 2026	3 hours 31 minutes	National Airspace System
5 July 2026	3 hours 10 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
27 March 2026	3 hours 7 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
43%
Carrier
35%
National Airspace System
18%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
1%

43% 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 16 to one. The split is drawn from 12,264 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,283 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.55% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.1% 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 roughly 55 minutes, 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 77.8% on time across 964 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 965 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking Southwest on BWI to CLT

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 965 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 75.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 948 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures