Route reliability record
BWI→MSP
Baltimore to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,406
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 936 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 points 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,406 BWI to MSP flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 918 at 85.0% on time.
Best time to fly BWI to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.1%, against 80.3% 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
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,385 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.42%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
85.0% on time across 918 flights
These figures cover 1,406 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 MSP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 85.0% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 71.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 488 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 918 | 85.0% | 92 min | 1.31% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 488 | 71.5% | 59 min | 1.64% | C |
The spread between Delta and Southwest is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 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.
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 | 84.2% | 85.1% | 1.10% | 5am–8am, Thu (route) | OO 3996 07:00 |
| 2. BWI → MSPBaltimore to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 83.9% | 85.0% | 1.31% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 2872 06:00 |
| 3. DCA → MSPWashington to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 78.3% | 79.9% | 2.06% | 5am–8am, Mon | DL 1193 06:10 |
| 4. BWI → MSPBaltimore to Minneapolis | Southwest Airlines | 70.3% | 71.5% | 1.64% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 5. DCA → MSPWashington to Minneapolis | PSA Airlines | 66.5% | 69.5% | 4.35% | 8am–11am, Mon | — |
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 46 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am365 flights91.4%
- 8am–11am108 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm252 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm237 flights84.9%
- 5pm–8pm325 flights76.3%
- 8pm–5am119 flights45.2%
Scale runs 35% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 45.2% on time, against 91.4% 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.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 66.2% on time, 26 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. July was the busiest month here, with 143 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.9%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 42%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 20,611 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 8,562 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.42% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.4% 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 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 80.8% on time across 1,406 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 1,406 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 66.2%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,385 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 19.7% of the 1,406 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 85.0% on time across 918 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 71.5%, a gap of 14 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 91.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 45.2%, 46 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 66.2% on time, compared with 92.0% in February. Across the year that is 26 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 MSP85.0%
- Southwest Airlines on BWI to MSP71.5%
- BWI to ATL, a related route80.6%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.7%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record71.5%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.