Carrier route record
WNBWI→TPA
Southwest Airlines · Baltimore to Tampa
- Flights
- 2,287
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 86%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on BWI to TPA 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 an hour on average. That rests on 2,287 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on BWI to TPA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,236 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.84%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.1%
Every carrier on BWI to TPA, 2,651 flights
These figures cover 2,287 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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
Southwest against every carrier on BWI to TPA
Southwest flew 2,287 of the 2,651 flights on BWI to TPA, most of the route. Its 78.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 92.3% to Frontier at 75.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 27 | 92.3% | 45 min | 3.70% | A− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 2,287 | 78.3% | 58 min | 1.84% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 337 | 75.8% | 87 min | 3.26% | 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
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am380 flights93.1%
- 8am–11am466 flights88.1%
- 11am–2pm286 flights73.9%
- 2pm–5pm449 flights76.7%
- 5pm–8pm522 flights67.3%
- 8pm–5am184 flights64.8%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.8% on time, against 93.1% for the 5am–8am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 522 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on BWI to TPA through the year
August is the worst month at 60.5% on time, 29 points below September, the best at 89.5%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 228 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.3%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on BWI to TPA runs when it is late
Southwest on BWI to TPA often beats the schedule: 624 of 2,236 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 485 late arrivals split 191 under half an hour, 150 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 144 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early624 flights27.9%
- Within 15 min1,127 flights50.4%
- 15–29 min late191 flights8.5%
- 30–59 min late150 flights6.7%
- 1–2 hours late87 flights3.9%
- 2+ hours late57 flights2.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,236 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 655 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 224 still arrived on time. 54 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on BWI to TPA
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 August 2026, 6 hours 56 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across August, December, March and May, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 August 2026 | 6 hours 56 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 December 2025 | 6 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 March 2026 | 5 hours 58 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 August 2026 | 5 hours 47 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 May 2026 | 4 hours 48 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 28,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 27,984 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 10,000 of the 28,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.84% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.39%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.4% 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 842 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 81.3% on time across 2,261 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,287 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on BWI to TPA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.5% on time and August 60.5%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,236 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BWI to TPA, every carrier
- Southwest on TPA to BWI, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on BWI to TPA75.8%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.