Route reliability record
CLT→BWI
Charlotte to Baltimore
- Flights
- 2,947
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 361 mi
- Carriers
- 5
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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,947 CLT to BWI flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 964 at 77.8% on time.
Best time to fly CLT to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.3%, against 76.9% 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
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,890 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.8% on time across 964 flights
These figures cover 2,947 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 CLT to BWI
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 79.5% | 48 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 964 | 77.8% | 55 min | 1.87% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,780 | 76.4% | 74 min | 1.52% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 163 | 76.4% | 86 min | 3.68% | B− |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 77.8%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte to Baltimore
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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | Republic Airways | 84.1% | 86.6% | 2.86% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | PSA Airlines | 78.9% | 81.5% | 3.21% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. CLT → BWICharlotte to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 76.3% | 77.8% | 1.87% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. CLT → BWICharlotte to Baltimore | American Airlines | 75.2% | 76.4% | 1.52% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | American Airlines | 67.4% | 68.7% | 1.86% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
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 25 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am203 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am606 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm538 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm368 flights68.8%
- 5pm–8pm528 flights70.9%
- 8pm–5am704 flights68.4%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.6% of the time, against 68.4% for the overnight window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 704 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to BWI 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 CLT to BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 68.4%, a wide gap of 25.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.6%
- 8–11am87.6%
- 11am–2pm81.2%
- 2–5pm68.8%
- 5–8pm70.9%
- 8pm–5am68.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
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 63.5% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 88.4%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 288 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.9%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 45,521 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.73% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 361 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.8% on time across 2,948 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 2,947 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 BWI 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 88.4% on time and July 63.5%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,890 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to BWI questions
How often is CLT to BWI 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 23.1% of the 2,947 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to BWI?
Southwest Airlines leads at 77.8% on time across 964 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 76.4%, a gap of about a point. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.4%, 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 July delays on CLT to BWI?
July is the weakest month at 63.5% on time, compared with 88.4% 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
- BWI to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on CLT to BWI77.8%
- American Airlines on CLT to BWI76.4%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to BWI76.4%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.2%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record79.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.8%
- 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. CLT to BWI and BWI to CLT 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.