Route reliability record
PBI→BWI
West Palm Beach to Baltimore
- Flights
- 1,141
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 883 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 about an hour on average. That rests on 1,141 PBI to BWI flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly PBI to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.4%, against 81.2% 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
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,120 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
81.2% on time across 1,141 flights
These figures cover 1,141 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 PBI to BWI
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,141 | 81.2% | 59 min | 1.49% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly West Palm Beach 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → IADFort Lauderdale to Washington | United Airlines | 85.4% | 85.9% | 0.57% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. PBI → BWIWest Palm Beach to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 80.0% | 81.2% | 1.49% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. FLL → BWIFort Lauderdale to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 71.9% | 73.5% | 2.18% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. PBI → DCAWest Palm Beach to Washington | American Airlines | 71.5% | 72.9% | 1.95% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. FLL → DCAFort Lauderdale to Washington | JetBlue Airways | 67.1% | 69.2% | 2.97% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1480 06:45 |
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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am334 flights94.8%
- 8am–11am48 flights76.6%
- 11am–2pm240 flights87.2%
- 2pm–5pm243 flights69.2%
- 5pm–8pm276 flights70.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.8% of the time, against 69.2% for the afternoon window. That is 26 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 334 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PBI 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 PBI to BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 69.2%, a wide gap of 25.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.8%
- 8–11am76.6%
- 11am–2pm87.2%
- 2–5pm69.2%
- 5–8pm70.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 67.0% on time, against 91.1% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 125 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.3%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
59% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 to one. The split is drawn from 12,427 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 94.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.49% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.35%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.6% 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 883 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 runs 78.5% on time across 1,141 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,141 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. September runs 91.1% on time and December 67.0%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,120 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PBI to BWI questions
How often is PBI 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 18.8% of the 1,141 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is PBI to BWI compared with the rest of the country?
81.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PBI to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 69.2%, 26 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 PBI to BWI?
December is the weakest month at 67.0% on time, compared with 91.1% in September. Across the year that is 24 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 PBI — the return legseparate record
- Palm Beach International (PBI) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- PBI to ATL, a related route82.7%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.2%
- PBI to EWR, a related route75.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PBI to BWI and BWI to PBI 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.