Route profile
ATL→BWI
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Atlanta to Baltimore, 577 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 30% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 18,148 flights. How this is calculated
ATL → BWI arrives on time 75.5% of the time; the return trip, BWI → ATL, arrives on time 78.7% of the time, a 3.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
ATL → BWI spends 23.2 minutes on the ground on a 577-mile trip: 16.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at ATL and 7.1 minutes from touchdown to gate at BWI.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why ATL → BWI flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
ATL → BWI cancelled 285 of 18,148 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 64. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 53.7% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 119 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 285 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
153 cancellations, 53.7% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
115 cancellations, 40.4% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
17 cancellations, 6.0% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
285 coded cancellations were recorded on ATL → BWI; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
52 min late
against a median of 2 min early
Percentiles over 18,148 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at BWI after arriving from ATL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 45% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 24% | High risk |
| 60 min | 16% | High risk |
| 90 min | 8.5% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.0% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.57% of the time and diverts 0.21% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 17,825 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 52 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 18,148 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
ATL → BWI flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 89.9% of the time, against 62.8% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 27.1 percentage points.
By day and hour
On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (ATL).
Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 10.0 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 4.0 points.
| Hour | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
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On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time
- 40–49
- 50–59
- 60–69
- 70–79
- 80–89
- 90–99
- Fewer than 120 flights, not scored
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.
No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 7 AM and after 11 PM (781 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.
View as tableHide table
| Hour | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 AM–8 AM | 88.5% on time261 flights | 87.5% on time238 flights | 93.1% on time236 flights | 90.0% on time261 flights | 88.6% on time267 flights | 81 flights, too few to score | 91.1% on time252 flights |
| 8 AM–9 AM | 88 flights, too few to score | 113 flights, too few to score | 115 flights, too few to score | 95 flights, too few to score | 89 flights, too few to score | 93.6% on time144 flights | 106 flights, too few to score |
| 9 AM–10 AM | 82.0% on time185 flights | 88.0% on time184 flights | 90.5% on time201 flights | 81.2% on time189 flights | 84.9% on time187 flights | 99 flights, too few to score | 78.1% on time202 flights |
| 10 AM–11 AM | 110 flights, too few to score | 73 flights, too few to score | 83 flights, too few to score | 87.5% on time121 flights | 117 flights, too few to score | 81 flights, too few to score | 60 flights, too few to score |
| 11 AM–12 PM | 78.7% on time185 flights | 86.4% on time214 flights | 87.3% on time206 flights | 88.5% on time186 flights | 84.3% on time184 flights | 81.3% on time192 flights | 82.4% on time205 flights |
| 12 PM–1 PM | 73 flights, too few to score | 68 flights, too few to score | 70 flights, too few to score | 66 flights, too few to score | 60 flights, too few to score | 47 flights, too few to score | 55 flights, too few to score |
| 1 PM–2 PM | 77.8% on time209 flights | 83.4% on time208 flights | 87.0% on time201 flights | 80.5% on time230 flights | 85.7% on time206 flights | 81.5% on time194 flights | 76.2% on time231 flights |
| 2 PM–3 PM | 67.7% on time167 flights | 101 flights, too few to score | 103 flights, too few to score | 77.5% on time146 flights | 77.8% on time169 flights | 74.1% on time148 flights | 67.1% on time143 flights |
| 3 PM–4 PM | 64.1% on time155 flights | 79.0% on time160 flights | 73.9% on time163 flights | 68.0% on time172 flights | 66.7% on time148 flights | 75.4% on time144 flights | 70.0% on time142 flights |
| 4 PM–5 PM | 63.1% on time229 flights | 72.2% on time221 flights | 74.4% on time229 flights | 77.4% on time220 flights | 70.6% on time232 flights | 72.7% on time165 flights | 62.3% on time227 flights |
| 5 PM–6 PM | 62.6% on time135 flights | 65.3% on time128 flights | 72.1% on time130 flights | 63.3% on time133 flights | 55.2% on time139 flights | 68.1% on time149 flights | 62.5% on time135 flights |
| 6 PM–7 PM | 69.2% on time158 flights | 76.6% on time128 flights | 78.9% on time124 flights | 65.4% on time160 flights | 64.7% on time154 flights | 55.8% on time134 flights | 62.7% on time156 flights |
| 7 PM–8 PM | 68.7% on time149 flights | 106 flights, too few to score | 105 flights, too few to score | 62.0% on time144 flights | 57.4% on time143 flights | 90 flights, too few to score | 55.8% on time131 flights |
| 8 PM–9 PM | 110 flights, too few to score | 108 flights, too few to score | 109 flights, too few to score | 118 flights, too few to score | 107 flights, too few to score | 80 flights, too few to score | 53.7% on time128 flights |
| 9 PM–10 PM | 63.7% on time147 flights | 116 flights, too few to score | 107 flights, too few to score | 65.2% on time143 flights | 60.4% on time147 flights | 90 flights, too few to score | 49.2% on time130 flights |
| 10 PM–11 PM | 63.2% on time266 flights | 73.6% on time232 flights | 74.9% on time224 flights | 59.8% on time265 flights | 61.7% on time274 flights | 76.2% on time215 flights | 48.1% on time308 flights |
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 90.2% on time from 559 flights
- 7 AM: 89.9% on time from 1,596 flights
- 8 AM: 90.6% on time from 750 flights
- 9 AM: 84.3% on time from 1,247 flights
- 10 AM: 84.9% on time from 645 flights
- 11 AM: 84.2% on time from 1,372 flights
- 12 PM: 80.0% on time from 439 flights
- 1 PM: 81.6% on time from 1,479 flights
- 2 PM: 73.9% on time from 977 flights
- 3 PM: 71.0% on time from 1,084 flights
- 4 PM: 70.3% on time from 1,523 flights
- 5 PM: 64.2% on time from 949 flights
- 6 PM: 67.3% on time from 1,014 flights
- 7 PM: 66.4% on time from 868 flights
- 8 PM: 65.2% on time from 760 flights
- 9 PM: 59.6% on time from 880 flights
- 10 PM: 64.3% on time from 1,784 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why ATL → BWI runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for ATL → BWI. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on ATL → BWI, at 39.5%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 89.9% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 62.8%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of ATL to BWI: 3.3 times the normal rate at ATL and 4.8 times at BWI. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: ATL 3.4% against 1.0%, BWI 4.7% against 1.0%. Flights that did leave ATL in bad weather arrived on time 66.5% of the time, against 80.2% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | ATL | BWI |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.4% | 4.7% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.0% | 1.0% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 66.5% | 65.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.2% | 77.5% |
| Departures in bad weather | 105,854 | 30,451 |
Of the carriers on this route, Southwest Airlines (2.1% cancelled against 3.1% for the other carriers at ATL) cancelled the fewest departures from ATL in bad weather and Frontier Airlines (5.0% cancelled against 3.8% for the other carriers at ATL) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at ATL
All departures from ATL| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 8,953 | 2.1%below the others | 3.1% |
| Delta Air Lines | 73,919 | 3.5%about level | 3.6% |
| Spirit Airlines | 2,965 | 3.9%above the others | 3.2% |
| Frontier Airlines | 4,928 | 5.0%above the others | 3.8% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from ATL and BWI, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from ATL on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: ATL (airlines), BWI, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 8,795 | 77.7% | 1.22% | -2 min | 7.6% |
| Southwest Airlines | 5,910 | 78.6% | 1.49% | -3 min | 6.6% |
| Frontier Airlines | 2,314 | 61.4% | 3.07% | 4 min | 16.6% |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,129 | 70.3% | 1.68% | 0 min | 11.1% |
Delta Air Lines flew 48.5% of the 18,148 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 3.07% of its flights here against 1.22% for Delta Air Lines.
Southwest Airlines arrived on time 17.2 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Other ways to fly Atlanta to Washington
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
ATL → IAD is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 78.8% on time, against 73.7% for ATL → DCA.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL2590 Delta Air Lines | 10:50 PM | 1,101 | 73.9% |
| DL2799 Delta Air Lines | 1:53 PM | 1,054 | 82.7% |
| DL2711 Delta Air Lines | 11:00 AM | 1,011 | 83.5% |
| DL801 Delta Air Lines | 9:10 AM | 750 | 88.8% |
| DL1267 Delta Air Lines | 3:30 PM | 726 | 67.2% |
| DL1257 Delta Air Lines | 6:59 PM | 699 | 68.3% |
| F92634 Frontier Airlines | 2:51 PM | 632 | 61.1% |
DL801 (9:10 AM) arrived on time 88.8% of the time, 27.7 points more often than F92634 (2:51 PM) at 61.1%.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 13.0 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 78.2%
- Feb: 81.4%
- Mar: 76.1%
- Apr: 77.9%
- May: 70.1%
- Jun: 69.2%
- Jul: 60.0%
- Aug: 72.2%
- Sep: 83.9%
- Oct: 82.5%
- Nov: 83.3%
- Dec: 77.8%
July is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 23.9 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 64.2% from 583 flights
- August 2023: 71.0% from 591 flights
- September 2023: 81.5% from 528 flights
- October 2023: 80.8% from 570 flights
- November 2023: 86.8% from 548 flights
- December 2023: 83.1% from 517 flights
- January 2024: 79.9% from 445 flights
- February 2024: 84.4% from 410 flights
- March 2024: 81.0% from 495 flights
- April 2024: 78.2% from 535 flights
- May 2024: 66.2% from 573 flights
- June 2024: 78.5% from 494 flights
- July 2024: 54.7% from 499 flights
- August 2024: 71.4% from 540 flights
- September 2024: 82.5% from 496 flights
- October 2024: 86.3% from 514 flights
- November 2024: 82.9% from 535 flights
- December 2024: 79.6% from 531 flights
- January 2025: 77.7% from 469 flights
- February 2025: 82.4% from 432 flights
- March 2025: 76.4% from 476 flights
- April 2025: 73.4% from 459 flights
- May 2025: 69.3% from 500 flights
- June 2025: 54.9% from 496 flights
- July 2025: 60.7% from 508 flights
- August 2025: 74.5% from 493 flights
- September 2025: 88.1% from 465 flights
- October 2025: 80.6% from 501 flights
- November 2025: 79.6% from 469 flights
- December 2025: 69.2% from 433 flights
- January 2026: 76.9% from 379 flights
- February 2026: 76.6% from 346 flights
- March 2026: 69.7% from 414 flights
- April 2026: 82.3% from 440 flights
- May 2026: 75.6% from 486 flights
- June 2026: 73.9% from 480 flights
- July 2026: 59.4% from 498 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.5% against 74.8% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 18,148 ATL → BWI flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed