Route reliability record
FLL→BWI
Fort Lauderdale to Baltimore
- Flights
- 3,150
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 925 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,150 FLL to BWI flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 2,106 at 73.5% on time.
Best time to fly FLL to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.1%, against 71.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 63 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,046 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
73.5% on time across 2,106 flights
These figures cover 3,150 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to BWI
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,106 | 73.5% | 58 min | 2.18% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 684 | 70.1% | 69 min | 4.68% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 198 | 66.8% | 88 min | 4.04% | C− |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 162 | 47.1% | 84 min | 5.56% | F− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.7% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fort Lauderdale 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. FLL → IADFort Lauderdale to Washington | United Airlines | 85.4% | 85.9% | 0.57% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. PBI → BWIWest Palm Beach to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 80.0% | 81.2% | 1.49% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. MIA → DCAMiami to Washington | American Airlines | 74.0% | 75.7% | 2.22% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2648 19:17 |
| 4. MIA → BWIMiami to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 72.1% | 73.6% | 2.10% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. FLL → BWIFort Lauderdale to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 71.9% | 73.5% | 2.18% | 5am–8am, 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 40 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am616 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am635 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm439 flights70.3%
- 2pm–5pm501 flights61.8%
- 5pm–8pm523 flights50.6%
- 8pm–5am436 flights58.8%
Scale runs 40% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 50.6% on time, against 90.3% 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 635 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FLL 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 FLL to BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 50.6%, a wide gap of 39.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.3%
- 8–11am84.9%
- 11am–2pm70.3%
- 2–5pm61.8%
- 5–8pm50.6%
- 8pm–5am58.8%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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 56.0% on time, 32 points below September, the best at 87.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 307 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.4%, a spread of 22 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 57,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 2%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. Across 57,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. The split is drawn from 57,151 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 90.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.02%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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 actually costs
9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 925 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 74.5% on time across 3,168 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 3,150 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.02% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,046 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to BWI questions
How often is FLL to BWI delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.0% of the 3,150 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to BWI?
Southwest Airlines leads at 73.5% on time across 2,106 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 70.1%, a gap of 3 points. 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 FLL to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 50.6%, 40 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 FLL to BWI?
July is the weakest month at 56.0% on time, compared with 87.7% in September. Across the year that is 32 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 FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on FLL to BWI73.5%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to BWI70.1%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to BWI66.8%
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to BWI47.1%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.0%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.2%
- FLL to LGA, a related route64.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record70.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record66.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. FLL to BWI and BWI to FLL 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.