Route reliability record
BWI→PIT
Baltimore to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 1,071
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 210 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That rests on 1,071 BWI to PIT flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly BWI to PIT: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.8%, against 77.9% 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
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,047 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.9% on time across 1,071 flights
These figures cover 1,071 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 PIT
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 | 1,071 | 77.9% | 55 min | 2.24% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Baltimore to Pittsburgh
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → PITWashington to Pittsburgh | United Airlines | 86.8% | 87.5% | 0.77% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. IAD → PITWashington to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 79.9% | 81.9% | 2.44% | 11am–2pm, Mon | YX 3540 22:30 |
| 3. BWI → PITBaltimore to Pittsburgh | Southwest Airlines | 76.2% | 77.9% | 2.24% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 4. DCA → PITWashington to Pittsburgh | PSA Airlines | 70.0% | 75.1% | 6.74% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 5. DCA → PITWashington to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 68.2% | 70.9% | 3.87% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4763 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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am197 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm169 flights89.3%
- 2pm–5pm150 flights80.4%
- 5pm–8pm207 flights68.0%
- 8pm–5am348 flights70.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 89.3% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 68.0%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 348 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI to PIT 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 PIT, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 89.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.0%, a wide gap of 21.3 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am89.2%
- 11am–2pm89.3%
- 2–5pm80.4%
- 5–8pm68.0%
- 8pm–5am70.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 66.7% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 91.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.2%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 12,659 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.24% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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 about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 210 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.7% on time across 1,071 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,071 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PIT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,071 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 77.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,047 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to PIT questions
How often is BWI to PIT delayed?
Roughly 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 22.1% of the 1,071 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is BWI to PIT compared with the rest of the country?
77.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half 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 PIT?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.0%, 21 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 PIT?
July is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 91.9% in September. Across the year that is 25 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
- PIT to BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ORD to PIT, a related route73.6%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.9%
- 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 PIT and PIT 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.