Route reliability record
BWI→MSP
Baltimore to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,423
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 936 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point 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 1,423 BWI to MSP flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 923 at 84.4% on time.
Best time to fly BWI to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.8%, against 78.5% 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
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,390 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
84.4% on time across 923 flights
These figures cover 1,423 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 MSP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 67.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 500 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 923 | 84.4% | 105 min | 1.84% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 500 | 67.4% | 57 min | 2.60% | C |
The spread between Delta and Southwest is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on BWI to MSP
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 Minneapolis
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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → MSPWashington to Minneapolis | SkyWest Airlines | 84.8% | 85.8% | 1.18% | 5am–8am, Thu | OO 3996 06:00 |
| 2. BWI → MSPBaltimore to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 82.8% | 84.4% | 1.84% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | DL 2872 06:00 |
| 3. DCA → MSPWashington to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 77.4% | 78.9% | 1.88% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 1193 06:05 |
| 4. BWI → MSPBaltimore to Minneapolis | Southwest Airlines | 65.6% | 67.4% | 2.60% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. DCA → MSPWashington to Minneapolis | PSA Airlines | 60.7% | 65.4% | 7.20% | 8am–11am, 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 53 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am68 flights85.3%
- 11am–2pm309 flights75.1%
- 2pm–5pm237 flights86.1%
- 5pm–8pm325 flights77.0%
- 8pm–5am119 flights36.4%
Scale runs 30% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 36.4% on time, against 89.4% 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI to MSP 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 MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 36.4%, a wide gap of 53.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am85.3%
- 11am–2pm75.1%
- 2–5pm86.1%
- 5–8pm77.0%
- 8pm–5am36.4%
best all US flightsScale 30% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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 60.9% on time, 31 points below February, the best at 92.0%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 149 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.9%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 44% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Carrier
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 to one. The split is drawn from 23,831 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 10,000 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.11% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 936 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 82.1% on time across 1,419 flights, 4 points above 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 1,423 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 MSP 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. February runs 92.0% on time and July 60.9%, a swing of 31 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,390 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to MSP questions
How often is BWI to MSP 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 21.5% of the 1,423 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 MSP?
Delta Air Lines leads at 84.4% on time across 923 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 67.4%, a gap of 17 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 MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 36.4%, 53 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 MSP?
July is the weakest month at 60.9% on time, compared with 92.0% in February. Across the year that is 31 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
- MSP to BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on BWI to MSP84.4%
- Southwest Airlines on BWI to MSP67.4%
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record67.4%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BWI to MSP and MSP 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.