Route reliability record
BWI→DFW
Baltimore to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,326
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,217 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 1,326 BWI to DFW flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly BWI to DFW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.2% of the time and Thursday flights 79.4%, against 73.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 42 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,287 completed flights
Avg delay
105 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.56%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
73.7% on time across 968 flights
These figures cover 1,326 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BWI to DFW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 68 | 83.6% | 70 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 968 | 73.7% | 109 min | 3.00% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 287 | 68.3% | 100 min | 1.74% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on BWI to DFW
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Baltimore to Dallas-Fort Worth
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. IAD → DFWWashington to Dallas-Fort Worth | United Airlines | 79.6% | 80.0% | 0.54% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 2116 18:00 |
| 2. DCA → DFWWashington to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 76.6% | 78.8% | 2.85% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1978 07:45 |
| 3. BWI → DALBaltimore to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 74.2% | 75.8% | 2.06% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. IAD → DFWWashington to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 72.6% | 74.4% | 2.47% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2617 06:00 |
| 5. BWI → DFWBaltimore to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 71.5% | 73.7% | 3.00% | 5am–8am, Thu | AA 1403 06:00 |
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–8am365 flights83.5%
- 8am–11am37 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm199 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm405 flights70.2%
- 5pm–8pm270 flights57.8%
- 8pm–5am50 flights67.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.8% on time, against 89.2% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 405 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI to DFW 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 DFW, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 89.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 57.8%, a wide gap of 31.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am83.5%
- 8–11am89.2%
- 11am–2pm79.5%
- 2–5pm70.2%
- 5–8pm57.8%
- 8pm–5am67.3%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
June is the worst month at 62.6% on time, 22 points below January, the best at 84.5%. 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 150 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 79.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 66.3%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 36,400 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 36,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.56%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,217 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.9% on time across 1,325 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,326 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 DFW 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. January runs 84.5% on time and June 62.6%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,287 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to DFW questions
How often is BWI to DFW delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.9% of the 1,326 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is BWI to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
73.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BWI to DFW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.8%, 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 June delays on BWI to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 62.6% on time, compared with 84.5% in January. Across the year that is 22 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
- DFW to BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- American Airlines on BWI to DFW73.7%
- Frontier Airlines on BWI to DFW68.3%
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record83.6%
- American Airlines on-time record73.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BWI to DFW and DFW 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.