Route profile
BWI→DTW
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Baltimore to Detroit, 409 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 53% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 6,495 flights. How this is calculated
BWI → DTW arrives on time 79.9% of the time; the return trip, DTW → BWI, arrives on time 81.6% of the time.
BWI → DTW spends 22.9 minutes on the ground on a 409-mile trip: 14.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at BWI and 8.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at DTW.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
On-time performance swings unusually widely by time of day here, wider than 97% of 4,023 comparable routes.
92.8% on time for 5–9 AM departures, against 58.2% for 9 PM–5 AM.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 4,023 in the comparison.
Why BWI → DTW flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
BWI → DTW cancelled 83 of 6,495 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 78. The reason filed most often was the airline, 44.6% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 176 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 83 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
37 cancellations, 44.6% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
34 cancellations, 41.0% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
12 cancellations, 14.5% 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.
83 coded cancellations were recorded on BWI → DTW; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
41 min late
against a median of 7 min early
Percentiles over 6,495 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at DTW after arriving from BWI.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 35% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 19% | High risk |
| 60 min | 13% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 6.8% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.4% | Low 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 1.28% of the time and diverts 0.02% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 6,411 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 41 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 6,495 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
BWI → DTW flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 92.8% of the time, against 58.2% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 34.6 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 93.3% on time from 1,051 flights
- 7 AM to 8 AM: too few flights to score
- 9 AM: 86.4% on time from 349 flights
- 10 AM: 84.8% on time from 659 flights
- 11 AM: 88.2% on time from 538 flights
- 12 PM: 85.8% on time from 903 flights
- 1 PM: 88.2% on time from 154 flights
- 2 PM to 4 PM: too few flights to score
- 5 PM: 73.2% on time from 970 flights
- 6 PM: 74.4% on time from 318 flights
- 7 PM: too few flights to score
- 8 PM: 72.9% on time from 184 flights
- 9 PM: 60.8% on time from 513 flights
- 10 PM: 54.7% on time from 392 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why BWI → DTW 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 BWI → DTW. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on BWI → DTW, at 47.3%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 92.8% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 58.2%.
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 | 3,496 | 86.4% | 1.14% | -13 min | 5.7% |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,427 | 72.3% | 1.28% | 1 min | 7.4% |
| Frontier Airlines | 403 | 71.8% | 2.23% | -4 min | 11.9% |
Delta Air Lines flew 55.3% of the 6,326 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 2.23% of its flights here against 1.14% for Delta Air Lines.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 14.6 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL2601 Delta Air Lines | 6:00 AM | 1,127 | 93.3% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 11.3 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 77.5%
- Feb: 85.8%
- Mar: 78.9%
- Apr: 81.9%
- May: 77.2%
- Jun: 75.0%
- Jul: 70.0%
- Aug: 76.9%
- Sep: 84.6%
- Oct: 89.2%
- Nov: 87.4%
- Dec: 79.6%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 19.2 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 60.3% from 153 flights
- August 2023: 68.5% from 151 flights
- September 2023: 86.5% from 143 flights
- October 2023: 86.0% from 157 flights
- November 2023: 87.9% from 140 flights
- December 2023: 85.8% from 148 flights
- January 2024: 66.9% from 151 flights
- February 2024: 89.5% from 143 flights
- March 2024: 81.9% from 155 flights
- April 2024: 82.1% from 162 flights
- May 2024: 70.4% from 172 flights
- June 2024: 69.7% from 175 flights
- July 2024: 69.1% from 190 flights
- August 2024: 74.2% from 187 flights
- September 2024: 79.9% from 189 flights
- October 2024: 89.7% from 196 flights
- November 2024: 89.4% from 179 flights
- December 2024: 82.6% from 167 flights
- January 2025: 81.5% from 164 flights
- February 2025: 83.4% from 146 flights
- March 2025: 80.1% from 171 flights
- April 2025: 80.2% from 165 flights
- May 2025: 79.3% from 209 flights
- June 2025: 75.1% from 215 flights
- July 2025: 72.4% from 216 flights
- August 2025: 84.6% from 227 flights
- September 2025: 87.5% from 218 flights
- October 2025: 90.9% from 231 flights
- November 2025: 84.8% from 160 flights
- December 2025: 70.6% from 165 flights
- January 2026: 83.7% from 159 flights
- February 2026: 84.4% from 138 flights
- March 2026: 74.5% from 159 flights
- April 2026: 83.2% from 175 flights
- May 2026: 80.7% from 206 flights
- June 2026: 79.4% from 203 flights
- July 2026: 75.7% from 210 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 82.0% against 80.4% in the 12 months before — improving by 1.6 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 6,495 BWI → DTW 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