Route reliability record
BWI→SRQ
Baltimore to Sarasota
- Flights
- 1,248
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 880 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 3 points 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 an hour on average. That rests on 1,248 BWI to SRQ flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly BWI to SRQ: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.0%, against 80.1% 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
80.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,219 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.92%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
80.1% on time across 1,248 flights
These figures cover 1,248 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BWI to SRQ
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 | 1,248 | 80.1% | 57 min | 1.92% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Baltimore to Sarasota
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 → TPAWashington to Tampa | United Airlines | 83.2% | 83.6% | 0.45% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 683 09:00 |
| 2. BWI → SRQBaltimore to Sarasota | Southwest Airlines | 78.6% | 80.1% | 1.92% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. DCA → TPAWashington to Tampa | Southwest Airlines | 76.9% | 78.8% | 2.44% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. BWI → TPABaltimore to Tampa | Southwest Airlines | 76.9% | 78.3% | 1.84% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. DCA → TPAWashington to Tampa | American Airlines | 69.3% | 71.3% | 2.76% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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–11am389 flights91.4%
- 11am–2pm181 flights82.0%
- 2pm–5pm308 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm222 flights75.8%
- 8pm–5am148 flights70.9%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.4% of the time, against 70.9% for the overnight window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 389 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI to SRQ 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 SRQ, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 70.9%, a wide gap of 20.5 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am91.4%
- 11am–2pm82.0%
- 2–5pm72.3%
- 5–8pm75.8%
- 8pm–5am70.9%
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 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.
December is the weak month at 67.6% on time, against 90.6% in January. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 137 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.8%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 19%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. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 13,894 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.92% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.40%.
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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 880 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.8% on time across 1,248 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,248 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 SRQ 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 90.6% on time and December 67.6%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,219 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to SRQ questions
How often is BWI to SRQ 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 19.9% of the 1,248 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is BWI to SRQ compared with the rest of the country?
80.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points 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 SRQ?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 70.9%, 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 December delays on BWI to SRQ?
December is the weakest month at 67.6% on time, compared with 90.6% 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
- SRQ to BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ATL to SRQ, a related route80.8%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record80.1%
- 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 SRQ and SRQ 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.