Route reliability record
BWI→RIC
Baltimore to Richmond
- Flights
- 730
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 120 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 730 BWI to RIC flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly BWI to RIC: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.1%, against 77.5% 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
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 714 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.19%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.5% on time across 730 flights
These figures cover 730 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BWI to RIC
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 | 730 | 77.5% | 56 min | 2.19% | 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.
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 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am280 flights88.0%
- 11am–2pm85 flights90.6%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm25 flights—
- 8pm–5am339 flights65.5%
Scale runs 55% 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 90.6% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 65.5%. 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 339 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI to RIC 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 RIC, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 90.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.5%, a wide gap of 25.1 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am88.0%
- 11am–2pm90.6%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am65.5%
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 36 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 55.9% on time, 36 points below September, the best at 91.7%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.6%, a spread of 22 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 8,940 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 3%National Airspace System
62% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,940 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 8,940 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.19% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 120 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 runs 74.9% on time across 730 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 730 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 RIC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 730 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 77.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 714 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to RIC questions
How often is BWI to RIC delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.5% of the 730 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is BWI to RIC compared with the rest of the country?
77.5% 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 RIC?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.5%, 25 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 RIC?
June is the weakest month at 55.9% on time, compared with 91.7% in September. Across the year that is 36 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
- RIC to BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ATL to RIC, a related route81.6%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.5%
- 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 RIC and RIC 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.