Carrier route record
AADFW→BWI
American Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Baltimore
- Flights
- 938
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 71%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DFW to BWI carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 938 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on DFW to BWI runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 86 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 902 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.30%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.3%
Every carrier on DFW to BWI, 1,329 flights
These figures cover 938 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DFW to BWI
American flew 938 of the 1,329 flights on DFW to BWI, most of the route. Its 69.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 69.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to American at 69.0%. 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 | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 121 | 71.7% | 62 min | 0.83% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 267 | 69.1% | 81 min | 2.62% | C |
| American Airlines (this page) | 938 | 69.0% | 66 min | 3.30% | C− |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on DFW to BWI
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am7 flights—
- 8am–11am281 flights80.7%
- 11am–2pm81 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm212 flights65.2%
- 5pm–8pm351 flights60.1%
- 8pm–5am6 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.1% on time, against 80.8% for the 11am–2pm 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 351 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DFW to BWI through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 79.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 91 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 73.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.4%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 18,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 18,480 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 6,677 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.30%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,217 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.2% on time across 938 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 938 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 American on DFW to BWI
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.30% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 902 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to BWI, every carrier
- American on BWI to DFW, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on DFW to BWI71.7%
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to BWI69.1%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.