Route reliability record
MSP→BWI
Minneapolis to Baltimore
- Flights
- 1,419
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 936 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,419 MSP to BWI flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 496 at 82.3% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 89.7%, against 82.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,387 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.62%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
82.3% on time across 496 flights
These figures cover 1,419 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to BWI
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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 | 496 | 82.3% | 52 min | 1.81% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 923 | 82.0% | 61 min | 1.52% | B |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 82.3%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to BWI
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Minneapolis 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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSP → BWIMinneapolis to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 80.8% | 82.3% | 1.81% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. MSP → BWIMinneapolis to Baltimore | Delta Air Lines | 80.8% | 82.0% | 1.52% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 2918 19:45 |
| 3. MSP → IADMinneapolis to Washington | SkyWest Airlines | 79.4% | 80.3% | 1.06% | 8am–11am, Sat | OO 3783 10:00 |
| 4. MSP → DCAMinneapolis to Washington | Delta Air Lines | 74.4% | 75.9% | 1.94% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 2983 10:05 |
| 5. MSP → DCAMinneapolis to Washington | PSA Airlines | 67.8% | 72.2% | 6.06% | 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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am461 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am170 flights89.3%
- 11am–2pm58 flights76.8%
- 2pm–5pm289 flights75.7%
- 5pm–8pm160 flights68.2%
- 8pm–5am281 flights78.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 68.2% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 461 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP 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 MSP to BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.2%, a wide gap of 22.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.9%
- 8–11am89.3%
- 11am–2pm76.8%
- 2–5pm75.7%
- 5–8pm68.2%
- 8pm–5am78.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 72.3% on time, 17 points below November, the best at 88.9%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 146 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.9%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,535 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 14,313 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.62% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.63%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 936 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 78.5% on time across 1,423 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,419 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. November runs 88.9% on time and July 72.3%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,387 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to BWI questions
How often is MSP to BWI delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.9% of the 1,419 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to BWI?
Southwest Airlines leads at 82.3% on time across 496 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 82.0%, a gap of half a point. 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 MSP to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.2%, 23 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 MSP to BWI?
July is the weakest month at 72.3% on time, compared with 88.9% in November. Across the year that is 17 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 MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on MSP to BWI82.3%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to BWI82.0%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.2%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record82.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MSP to BWI and BWI to MSP 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.