Route reliability record
BWI→LAS
Baltimore to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 1,811
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,106 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,811 BWI to LAS flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly BWI to LAS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.4%, against 78.9% for the route overall.
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
78.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,785 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.05%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.1% on time across 1,630 flights
These figures cover 1,811 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 LAS
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 Airlinesthin sample | 181 | 86.1% | 68 min | 0.55% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,630 | 78.1% | 55 min | 1.10% | B |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Baltimore to Las Vegas
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DCA → LASWashington to Las Vegas | American Airlines | 88.2% | 89.4% | 1.37% | 5am–8am, Sun | — |
| 2. IAD → LASWashington to Las Vegas | United Airlines | 86.4% | 86.8% | 0.50% | 8am–11am, Wed (route) | UA 1323 09:00 |
| 3. BWI → LASBaltimore to Las Vegas | Southwest Airlines | 77.2% | 78.1% | 1.10% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. DCA → LASWashington to Las Vegas | Southwest Airlines | 52.8% | 53.4% | 1.10% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am378 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am401 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm171 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm302 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm415 flights70.6%
- 8pm–5am144 flights63.5%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.5% on time, against 91.0% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 415 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 65.5% on time, 23 points below November, the best at 88.4%. 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 186 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.1%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 21,000 reported delay minutes.
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 2%Security
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 91.0% on time here. The split is drawn from 20,973 reported delay minutes.
No single cause dominates. late-arriving aircraft at 34%, carrier at 33% and national airspace system at 24% split the 21,000 reported delay minutes between them. An even spread like this usually means the operation is running close to its designed capacity with no one obvious weak point, and it is the hardest pattern for a traveller to route around.
Cancellations sit at 1.05% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.39%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.1% 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 last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,106 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 78.5% on time across 1,803 flights, within half a point 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 1,811 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 LAS 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. November runs 88.4% on time and June 65.5%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,785 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to LAS questions
How often is BWI to LAS 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 21.1% of the 1,811 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is BWI to LAS compared with the rest of the country?
78.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BWI to LAS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.5%, 28 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 LAS?
June is the weakest month at 65.5% on time, compared with 88.4% in November. Across the year that is 23 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
- LAS to BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on BWI to LAS86.1%
- Southwest Airlines on BWI to LAS78.1%
- BWI to ATL, a related route80.6%
- LAX to LAS, a related route76.5%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.6%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record86.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.1%
- 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 LAS and LAS 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.