Route reliability record
LAX→BWI
Los Angeles to Baltimore
- Flights
- 1,647
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,329 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average. That rests on 1,647 LAX to BWI flights, of which United Airlines flew 577 at 89.1% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.3% of the time and Saturday flights 84.7%, against 80.8% 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
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,626 completed flights
Avg delay
43 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.79%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
89.1% on time across 577 flights
These figures cover 1,647 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to BWI
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 89.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 76.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,022 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 577 | 89.1% | 63 min | 0.35% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 48 | 77.1% | 39 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,022 | 76.2% | 38 min | 1.08% | B |
The spread between United and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles 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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → BWILos Angeles to Baltimore | United Airlines | 88.8% | 89.1% | 0.35% | 11am–2pm, Mon | — |
| 2. LAX → IADLos Angeles to Washington | United Airlines | 87.5% | 88.0% | 0.56% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2667 10:39 |
| 3. LAX → DCALos Angeles to Washington | American Airlines | 79.6% | 80.5% | 1.10% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 4. LAX → BWILos Angeles to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 75.4% | 76.2% | 1.08% | 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 28 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am326 flights91.3%
- 8am–11am368 flights81.8%
- 11am–2pm277 flights63.7%
- 2pm–5pm26 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am650 flights83.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 63.7% on time against 91.3% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 650 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX 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 LAX to BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.3% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 63.7%, a wide gap of 27.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.3%
- 8–11am81.8%
- 11am–2pm63.7%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am83.2%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 65.7% on time, 28 points below January, the best at 94.1%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 169 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.9%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 to one. The split is drawn from 13,504 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,488 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.79%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 2,329 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.8% on time across 1,670 flights, 8 points below 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,647 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 94.1% on time and July 65.7%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,626 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to BWI questions
How often is LAX to BWI delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.2% of the 1,647 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to BWI?
United Airlines leads at 89.1% on time across 577 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 76.2%, a gap of 13 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 LAX to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.3% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 63.7%, 28 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 LAX to BWI?
July is the weakest month at 65.7% on time, compared with 94.1% in January. Across the year that is 28 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 LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- United Airlines on LAX to BWI89.1%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to BWI76.2%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.2%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- United Airlines on-time record89.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record77.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. LAX to BWI and BWI to LAX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed LAX 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.