Route reliability record
TPA→BWI
Tampa to Baltimore
- Flights
- 2,626
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 842 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 2,626 TPA to BWI flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly TPA to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.4%, against 81.9% 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 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,564 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.75%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
81.3% on time across 2,261 flights
These figures cover 2,626 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on TPA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 28 | 88.5% | 76 min | 7.14% | A− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 337 | 86.0% | 63 min | 2.08% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,261 | 81.3% | 54 min | 1.64% | B |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Tampa 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. TPA → IADTampa to Washington | United Airlines | 85.0% | 85.6% | 0.72% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 2331 09:00 |
| 2. SRQ → BWISarasota to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 82.4% | 83.8% | 1.68% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. TPA → BWITampa to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 80.0% | 81.3% | 1.64% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. TPA → DCATampa to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 73.8% | 75.1% | 1.72% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 5. TPA → DCATampa to Washington | American Airlines | 72.2% | 74.3% | 2.89% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 33 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am587 flights94.1%
- 8am–11am659 flights89.4%
- 11am–2pm317 flights88.1%
- 2pm–5pm417 flights75.5%
- 5pm–8pm448 flights65.1%
- 8pm–5am198 flights61.5%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.5% on time, against 94.1% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 659 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA 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 TPA to BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 61.5%, a wide gap of 32.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.1%
- 8–11am89.4%
- 11am–2pm88.1%
- 2–5pm75.5%
- 5–8pm65.1%
- 8pm–5am61.5%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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 74.5% on time, 15 points below September, the best at 89.5%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 266 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.4%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 26,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 25,619 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 94.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.75% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.61%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.4% 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 842 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 78.1% on time across 2,651 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 2,626 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 89.5% on time and July 74.5%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,564 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to BWI questions
How often is TPA 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 18.1% of the 2,626 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is TPA to BWI compared with the rest of the country?
81.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.5%, 33 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 TPA to BWI?
July is the weakest month at 74.5% on time, compared with 89.5% in September. Across the year that is 15 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 TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to BWI86.0%
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to BWI81.3%
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.6%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.2%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record88.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record86.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record81.3%
- 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. TPA to BWI and BWI to TPA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed TPA to BWI’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.