Carrier route record
UALAX→BWI
United Airlines · Los Angeles to Baltimore
- Flights
- 575
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on LAX to BWI earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 13 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 575 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's LAX to BWI record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 131 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 571 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
83.2%
Every carrier on LAX to BWI, 1,722 flights
These figures cover 575 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 13 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
United against every carrier on LAX to BWI
United flew 575 of the 1,722 flights on LAX to BWI, about 33% of it. Its 90.7% on time is 8 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 83.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 90.7% to Spirit at 75.0%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 575 | 90.7% | 65 min | 0.35% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,038 | 79.8% | 40 min | 0.77% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 109 | 75.0% | 70 min | 0.92% | B+ |
Departure window
When United 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 575 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am264 flights88.2%
- 11am–2pm62 flights95.0%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am249 flights92.4%
Scale runs 80% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 95.0% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 88.2%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 264 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on LAX to BWI through the year
August is the worst month at 86.3% on time, 12 points below April, the best at 98.0%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 98.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 84.9%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 54% of the 3,451 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.
- 54%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, 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 1,868 of the 3,451 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,451 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.35%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 2.6% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 85.0% on time across 576 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 575 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 United on LAX to BWI
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 575 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 90.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 571 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to BWI, every carrier
- United on BWI to LAX, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to BWI79.8%
- Spirit Airlines on LAX to BWI75.0%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.