Carrier route record

NKLAX→BWI

Spirit Airlines · Los Angeles to Baltimore

Flights: 109
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 6%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.

Spirit on LAX to BWI sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. 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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 109 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 575 at 90.7% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on LAX to BWI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 108 completed flights

Avg delay

70 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.92%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

83.2%

Every carrier on LAX to BWI, 1,722 flights

These figures cover 109 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Spirit against every carrier on LAX to BWI

Spirit flew 109 of the 1,722 flights on LAX to BWI, about 6% of it. Its 75.0% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 83.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 90.7% to Spirit at 75.0%.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 90.7% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 79.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,038 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to BWI
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	575	90.7%	65 min	0.35%	A+
Southwest Airlines	1,038	79.8%	40 min	0.77%	B+
Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample	109	75.0%	70 min	0.92%	B+

United leads Southwest by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

Departure window

When Spirit runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 109 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Spirit's LAX to BWI record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 75.0% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

Spirit on LAX to BWI through the year

Jul–Sep 202591 flights75.6%
Oct–Dec 202518 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 75.0% on time across 109 flights.

Split by quarter, Spirit on LAX to BWI logged 91 flights in Jul–Sep 2025 and 18 flights in Oct–Dec 2025. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 75.0% annual figure is the one to use.

Delay causes

Why Spirit runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 75% of the 1,897 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.

Carrier
75%
Late-arriving aircraft
13%
National Airspace System
12%

The largest share of delay minutes, 75%, 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 1,425 of the 1,897 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,897 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 0.92% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.5% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

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 87.5% on time across 106 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 109 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 Spirit on LAX to BWI

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 109 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 75.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 108 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures