Carrier route record
WNCLT→BWI
Southwest Airlines · Charlotte to Baltimore
- Flights
- 964
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on CLT to BWI lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 964 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on CLT to BWI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 942 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.87%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.9%
Every carrier on CLT to BWI, 2,947 flights
These figures cover 964 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 CLT to BWI
Southwest flew 964 of the 2,947 flights on CLT to BWI, about 33% of it. Its 77.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to Frontier at 76.4%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 79.5% | 48 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 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− |
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 56 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am146 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am251 flights91.9%
- 11am–2pm156 flights79.9%
- 2pm–5pm88 flights71.3%
- 5pm–8pm207 flights72.4%
- 8pm–5am116 flights37.8%
Scale runs 30% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 37.8% on time, against 93.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 251 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on CLT to BWI through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 65.8%. January is the strongest month at 90.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 24 points. May was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.2%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on CLT to BWI runs when it is late
The 209 late arrivals split 86 under half an hour, 67 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 56 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early173 flights18.4%
- Within 15 min560 flights59.4%
- 15–29 min late86 flights9.1%
- 30–59 min late67 flights7.1%
- 1–2 hours late34 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late22 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 942 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 287 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 91 still arrived on time. Only 13 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on CLT to BWI
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 April 2026, 6 hours 10 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across April, March, May and October, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 April 2026 | 6 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 March 2026 | 6 hours 8 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 18 May 2026 | 5 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 October 2025 | 3 hours 46 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 May 2026 | 3 hours 41 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 2%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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 27 to one. The split is drawn from 11,495 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 93.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.87% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.9% 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 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 runs 75.5% on time across 965 flights, within 2 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. 964 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on CLT to BWI
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 964 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 77.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 942 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to BWI, every carrier
- Southwest on BWI to CLT, the return leg
- American Airlines on CLT to BWI76.4%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to BWI76.4%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) 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.