Route reliability record
BWI→ORF
Baltimore to Norfolk
- Flights
- 1,539
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 159 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 1,539 BWI to ORF flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly BWI to ORF: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.2%, 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 1,514 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.62%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.5% on time across 1,539 flights
These figures cover 1,539 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BWI to ORF
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,539 | 78.5% | 50 min | 1.62% | B |
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Baltimore to Norfolk
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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BWI → ORFBaltimore to Norfolk | Southwest Airlines | 77.2% | 78.5% | 1.62% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. DCA → ORFWashington to Norfolk | PSA Airlines | 59.4% | 62.4% | 4.82% | 8am–11am, Sat (route) | OH 5662 22:00 |
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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am4 flights—
- 8am–11am486 flights92.6%
- 11am–2pm219 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm274 flights79.0%
- 5pm–8pm201 flights62.8%
- 8pm–5am355 flights65.9%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.8% on time, against 92.6% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 486 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI to ORF 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 ORF, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 92.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 62.8%, a wide gap of 29.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am92.6%
- 11am–2pm80.5%
- 2–5pm79.0%
- 5–8pm62.8%
- 8pm–5am65.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
July is the worst month at 67.9% on time, 23 points below January, the best at 91.1%. 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 149 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.6%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 16,073 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,868 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.62% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.2% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 159 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.8% on time across 1,539 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,539 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 ORF 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 91.1% on time and July 67.9%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,514 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to ORF questions
How often is BWI to ORF 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 1,539 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is BWI to ORF compared with the rest of the country?
78.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 ORF?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 92.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.8%, 30 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 ORF?
July is the weakest month at 67.9% on time, compared with 91.1% in January. 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
- ORF to BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ATL to ORF, a related route78.7%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. BWI to ORF and ORF to BWI are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed BWI to ORF’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.