Route reliability record
BWI→ROC
Baltimore to Rochester
- Flights
- 1,102
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 277 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,102 BWI to ROC flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
Best time to fly BWI to ROC: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.0% of the time and Friday flights 79.9%, against 74.8% 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
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,079 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.81%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
74.8% on time across 1,102 flights
These figures cover 1,102 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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 ROC
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 | 1,102 | 74.8% | 51 min | 1.81% | C |
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 Rochester
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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BWI → BUFBaltimore to Buffalo | Southwest Airlines | 74.3% | 75.9% | 2.14% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. BWI → ROCBaltimore to Rochester | Southwest Airlines | 73.4% | 74.8% | 1.81% | 11am–2pm, Fri | — |
| 3. DCA → ROCWashington to Rochester | PSA Airlines | 60.7% | 64.9% | 6.46% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 4. DCA → BUFWashington to Buffalo | PSA Airlines | 57.9% | 61.8% | 6.37% | 11am–2pm, Thu | — |
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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am248 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm160 flights85.0%
- 2pm–5pm293 flights79.1%
- 5pm–8pm40 flights54.1%
- 8pm–5am361 flights61.8%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.1% on time, against 85.0% for the 11am–2pm 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 361 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI to ROC 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 ROC, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 85.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 54.1%, a wide gap of 30.9 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am84.8%
- 11am–2pm85.0%
- 2–5pm79.1%
- 5–8pm54.1%
- 8pm–5am61.8%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
December is the weak month at 63.4% on time, against 91.1% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. December was the busiest month here, with 95 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 79.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.6%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 13,896 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.81% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.2% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 277 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 82.3% on time across 1,102 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,102 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 ROC 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. September runs 91.1% on time and December 63.4%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,079 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to ROC questions
How often is BWI to ROC delayed?
About 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 25.2% of the 1,102 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is BWI to ROC compared with the rest of the country?
74.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BWI to ROC?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 85.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 54.1%, 31 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 December delays on BWI to ROC?
December is the weakest month at 63.4% on time, compared with 91.1% in September. Across the year that is 28 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
- ROC to BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ORD to ROC, a related route73.3%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.8%
- 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 ROC and ROC to BWI are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed BWI to ROC’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.