Departure Delay vs. Arrival Delay: Why They're Not the Same

A flight can leave late and still land on time — or leave on time and still land late. At Baltimore/Washington (BWI), only 73.3% of flights depart on schedule, but 80.2% arrive on time — pilots make up the difference in the air. At San Francisco (SFO), it's reversed: 79.6% depart on time, but only 74.4% arrive on time, a 5.2-point drop most often tied to how the airport manages arrival spacing in poor weather.

• BWI has the biggest "time made up in the air" gap of any major US airport — a 6.9-point jump from 73.3% on-time departures to 80.2% on-time arrivals.
• SFO has the biggest reversal — on-time departures (79.6%) falling to a worse 74.4% on-time arrival rate, a 5.2-point drop.
• Several Northeast airports see arrivals get worse, not better — LaGuardia, Newark, Boston, and Reagan National all post lower on-time arrival rates than departure rates, a pattern consistent with congested Northeast airspace.
• Dallas Love Field and Chicago Midway also make up significant time in flight — Love Field gains 6.2 points and Midway gains 4.7 points between departure and arrival.
• The DOT's official "on-time" standard is arrival-based, not departure-based — a flight that leaves late but lands within 15 minutes of schedule still counts as on time. See the methodology for the full definition.

What's the difference between a departure delay and an arrival delay

A departure delay measures how late a flight pushes back or takes off compared with its scheduled time. An arrival delay measures how late it lands compared with its scheduled arrival time — and it's arrival delay, not departure delay, that determines whether a flight counts as "on time" under the DOT's standard 15-minutes-late threshold. The two numbers move independently, because everything that happens between takeoff and landing — cruise speed, routing, and how the airline built its schedule in the first place — can close the gap or widen it.

Airports where time gets made up in the air

At these airports, the on-time arrival rate is meaningfully higher than the on-time departure rate — flights that leave late tend to still land close to schedule:

• BWI (Baltimore/Washington) — 73.3% on-time departures → 80.2% on-time arrivals (+6.9 points)
• DAL (Dallas Love Field) — 72.9% → 79.1% (+6.2 points)
• MDW (Chicago Midway) — 75.1% → 79.8% (+4.7 points)
• CLT (Charlotte) — 75.3% → 79.8% (+4.5 points)
• DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) — 72.3% → 76.5% (+4.2 points)
• HOU (Houston Hobby) — 75.8% → 79.1% (+3.3 points)
• ATL (Atlanta) — 78.1% → 81.7% (+3.6 points)

Airports where arrivals fall further behind

At these airports, the pattern reverses — the on-time arrival rate is lower than the on-time departure rate, meaning flights that leave on schedule are more likely to land late:

• SFO (San Francisco) — 79.6% on-time departures → 74.4% on-time arrivals (−5.2 points)
• IND (Indianapolis) — 82.4% → 77.7% (−4.7 points)
• MCI (Kansas City) — 81.2% → 77.7% (−3.5 points)
• PDX (Portland) — 84.3% → 80.9% (−3.4 points)
• EWR (Newark) — 78.5% → 75.2% (−3.3 points)
• LGA (LaGuardia) — 78.9% → 75.6% (−3.3 points)
• BOS (Boston) — 78.2% → 75.2% (−3.0 points)
• DCA (Reagan National) — 75.9% → 73.5% (−2.4 points)

San Francisco's drop is widely attributed to its closely spaced parallel runways: in fog or low cloud, air traffic control has to space arriving aircraft further apart than usual, which backs up arrivals even when departures are running fine. The Northeast airports on this list — LaGuardia, Newark, Boston, and Reagan National — sit in some of the most congested airspace in the country, where arrival delays are often a function of overall traffic volume in the region rather than anything specific to that one airport.

Why the gap exists: schedule padding

Airlines build extra time into their published flight durations beyond what the aircraft actually needs in the air — a practice known as schedule padding. That buffer exists specifically so a flight that pushes back a few minutes late can still make up the difference at cruise speed or during descent and land close to on time. At airports with real spare capacity in the schedule, that buffer usually works. At airports where arrival slots are the bottleneck — dense airspace, weather-sensitive runway configurations, or both — the padding gets eaten up or overwhelmed, and the arrival delay ends up worse than the departure delay that caused it.

The same route can behave differently depending on which way you’re flying it — see does flight direction change your odds for specific route examples.

Frequently asked questions

Which is more important, on-time departure or on-time arrival?

Arrival. It's the DOT and FAA's official standard for "on time," and it's what actually matters for making a connection or a commitment on the other end — a flight that leaves 20 minutes late but lands on schedule has no practical impact on your day.

Can a flight be delayed at departure but still count as on-time?

Yes. As long as it arrives within 15 minutes of its scheduled arrival time, it counts as on-time under the DOT standard, regardless of how late it pushed back. BWI is the clearest example of this in the data: nearly 27% of its flights depart late, but only about 20% arrive late.

Which major airport has the biggest gap between departure and arrival reliability?

BWI has the largest positive gap (arrivals 6.9 points better than departures), and SFO has the largest negative gap (arrivals 5.2 points worse than departures) — the two extremes in this data.

Does FlightRecord track both departure and arrival delay?

Yes — every airport page on this site shows both departure and arrival on-time rates side by side, along with average delay minutes for each.