Carrier route record
WNBWI→FLL
Southwest Airlines · Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 2,124
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on BWI to FLL 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,124 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on BWI to FLL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,086 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.69%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.5%
Every carrier on BWI to FLL, 3,168 flights
These figures cover 2,124 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 FLL
Southwest flew 2,124 of the 3,168 flights on BWI to FLL, most of the route. Its 75.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 78.0% to Frontier at 51.3%. Two 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 687 | 78.0% | 63 min | 4.66% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 2,124 | 75.7% | 55 min | 1.69% | B |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 160 | 71.5% | 81 min | 5.00% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 197 | 51.3% | 90 min | 5.08% | F− |
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 39 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am577 flights83.1%
- 11am–2pm182 flights77.8%
- 2pm–5pm385 flights70.6%
- 5pm–8pm461 flights63.7%
- 8pm–5am155 flights53.6%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.6% 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 577 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on BWI to FLL through the year
December is the weak month at 60.9% on time, against 86.7% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. January was the busiest month here, with 201 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.5%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on BWI to FLL runs when it is late
Southwest on BWI to FLL often beats the schedule: 533 of 2,086 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 506 late arrivals split 200 under half an hour, 153 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 153 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early533 flights25.6%
- Within 15 min1,047 flights50.2%
- 15–29 min late200 flights9.6%
- 30–59 min late153 flights7.3%
- 1–2 hours late110 flights5.3%
- 2+ hours late43 flights2.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,086 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 624 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 209 still arrived on time. 91 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on BWI to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 February 2026, 6 hours 38 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 February 2026 | 6 hours 38 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 June 2026 | 5 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 November 2025 | 5 hours 5 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 12 June 2026 | 4 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 August 2026 | 4 hours 23 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 28,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 27,959 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 92.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.69% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.3% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 925 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 runs 73.5% on time across 2,106 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,124 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 Southwest on BWI to FLL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.7% on time and December 60.9%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,086 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BWI to FLL, every carrier
- Southwest on FLL to BWI, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on BWI to FLL78.0%
- JetBlue Airways on BWI to FLL71.5%
- Frontier Airlines on BWI to FLL51.3%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.