Route reliability record
DAL→BWI
Dallas to Baltimore
- Flights
- 1,821
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,209 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 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,821 DAL to BWI flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Best time to fly DAL to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.8%, against 74.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,779 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
74.9% on time across 1,821 flights
These figures cover 1,821 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DAL to BWI
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 | 1,821 | 74.9% | 62 min | 1.92% | C |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → IADDallas-Fort Worth to Washington | United Airlines | 83.6% | 84.4% | 0.98% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2639 07:25 |
| 2. DAL → BWIDallas to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 73.5% | 74.9% | 1.92% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. DFW → DCADallas-Fort Worth to Washington | American Airlines | 70.2% | 72.5% | 3.18% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1177 08:32 |
| 4. DFW → IADDallas-Fort Worth to Washington | American Airlines | 67.1% | 69.7% | 3.68% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. DAL → DCADallas to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 66.8% | 68.0% | 1.73% | 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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am481 flights93.0%
- 8am–11am276 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm272 flights71.7%
- 2pm–5pm312 flights58.8%
- 5pm–8pm298 flights63.1%
- 8pm–5am182 flights59.7%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.0% of the time, against 58.8% for the afternoon window. That is 34 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 481 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 63.3% on time, 21 points below January, the best at 84.3%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 173 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.1%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 28,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 27,534 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 9,678 of the 28,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.92% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.38%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 1,209 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 76.2% on time across 1,815 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,821 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. January runs 84.3% on time and July 63.3%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,779 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DAL to BWI questions
How often is DAL to BWI 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 25.1% of the 1,821 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DAL to BWI compared with the rest of the country?
74.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 DAL to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 58.8%, 34 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 DAL to BWI?
July is the weakest month at 63.3% on time, compared with 84.3% in January. Across the year that is 21 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 DAL — the return legseparate record
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.1%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.6%
- DAL to ATL, a related route79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DAL to BWI and BWI to DAL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DAL to BWI’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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.