Route reliability record
ORD→BWI
Chicago to Baltimore
- Flights
- 2,679
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 622 mi
- Carriers
- 8
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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,679 ORD to BWI flights, of which Envoy Air flew 841 at 77.3% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Saturday flights 78.2%, against 72.3% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 50 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,597 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.87%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
77.3% on time across 841 flights
These figures cover 2,679 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 ORD to BWI
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 77.3% of the time; United Airlines manages 70.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,257 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 9 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 62 | 80.6% | 53 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Envoy Air | 841 | 77.3% | 63 min | 3.80% | B− |
| United Airlines | 1,257 | 70.3% | 65 min | 1.59% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 336 | 69.6% | 89 min | 5.65% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 16 | 68.8% | 57 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 132 | 64.3% | 92 min | 4.55% | D− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 26 | 57.7% | 92 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Envoy Air cancels 3.8% 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 Chicago 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. MDW → BWIChicago to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 75.7% | 77.8% | 2.74% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | — |
| 2. ORD → IADChicago to Washington | United Airlines | 75.3% | 75.9% | 0.76% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → BWIChicago to Baltimore | Envoy Air | 74.4% | 77.3% | 3.80% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. ORD → BWIChicago to Baltimore | United Airlines | 69.2% | 70.3% | 1.59% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → DCAChicago to Washington | United Airlines | 68.6% | 70.1% | 2.14% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 1077 06:00 |
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 29 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am357 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am339 flights84.2%
- 11am–2pm356 flights71.9%
- 2pm–5pm736 flights70.0%
- 5pm–8pm494 flights60.5%
- 8pm–5am397 flights65.7%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.5% on time, against 89.4% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 736 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.5%, a wide gap of 28.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am84.2%
- 11am–2pm71.9%
- 2–5pm70.0%
- 5–8pm60.5%
- 8pm–5am65.7%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
December is the weak month at 61.1% on time, against 80.6% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 274 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.2% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 66.6%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 50,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 50,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 49,841 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 89.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.87%, 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
10.2% 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 622 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 75.5% on time across 2,677 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,679 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 2.87% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 2,597 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to BWI questions
How often is ORD to BWI delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.7% of the 2,679 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to BWI?
Envoy Air leads at 77.3% on time across 841 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 70.3%, a gap of 7 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 ORD to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.5%, 29 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 December delays on ORD to BWI?
December is the weakest month at 61.1% on time, compared with 80.6% in September. Across the year that is 19 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to BWI77.3%
- United Airlines on ORD to BWI70.3%
- Republic Airways on ORD to BWI69.6%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to BWI64.3%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.2%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record80.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record77.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to BWI and BWI to ORD 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.