Carrier performance at one airport
DL→DCA
Delta Air Lines at Ronald Reagan Washington National
- Departures
- 9,505
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 9
- Rank here
- #1 of 10
Delta Air Lines at Washington lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 9,505 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 9,505 at 78.7% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs 5 points ahead of the 73.2% weighted average across all carriers at DCA. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
78.7%
9,241 completed departures
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.54%
At DCA, this carrier only
Rank here
#1
Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at DCA
These figures cover 9,505 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Against the competition
Every carrier at DCA, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 78.7% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 67.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 39,988 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 9,505 | 78.7% | 90 min | 2.54% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 984 | 78.4% | 80 min | 0.91% | B+ |
| Envoy Air | 4,857 | 78.0% | 74 min | 3.77% | B− |
| United Airlines | 6,900 | 77.8% | 89 min | 1.55% | B |
| Republic Airways | 27,126 | 76.2% | 67 min | 4.33% | B− |
| American Airlines | 27,872 | 74.8% | 84 min | 2.67% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 16,065 | 74.1% | 64 min | 1.77% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,185 | 71.1% | 59 min | 1.14% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 6,699 | 69.4% | 84 min | 2.96% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 39,988 | 67.7% | 79 min | 5.71% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.7% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where Delta Air Lines flies from DCA
Delta Air Lines operates 9 routes out of DCA with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCA to ATL · Atlanta | 3,838 | 80.9% | 88 min | 2.81% | B |
| DCA to DTW · Detroit | 1,745 | 79.6% | 88 min | 2.46% | B |
| DCA to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,695 | 79.9% | 98 min | 2.06% | B |
| DCA to MCO · Orlando | 713 | 78.0% | 88 min | 3.65% | B− |
| DCA to SLC · Salt Lake City | 365 | 73.2% | 79 min | 0.82% | C+ |
| DCA to SEA · Seattle | 365 | 66.1% | 92 min | 3.01% | C− |
| DCA to MIA · Miamithin sample | 364 | 67.2% | 82 min | 1.92% | C |
| DCA to LAX · Los Angelesthin sample | 363 | 74.9% | 120 min | 2.20% | C |
| DCA to LGA · New Yorkthin sample | 54 | 90.7% | 44 min | 0.00% | A+ |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am2,041 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am1,500 flights85.2%
- 11am–2pm1,480 flights81.0%
- 2pm–5pm1,766 flights72.8%
- 5pm–8pm2,128 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am590 flights71.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.6% of the time, against 68.9% for the evening window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 2,128 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 65.1% on time, 22 points below October, the best at 87.4%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 835 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 178,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 178,203 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.54%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The sample behind these figures is 9,505 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.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 87.4% on time and July 65.1%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 9,241 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Delta Air Lines at DCA
How often is Delta Air Lines at DCA delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.3% of the 9,505 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Delta Air Lines at DCA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 78.7% on time across 9,505 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 67.7%, a gap of 11 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Delta Air Lines at DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.9%, 21 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 Delta Air Lines at DCA?
July is the weakest month at 65.1% on time, compared with 87.4% in October. Across the year that is 22 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
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) all carriers
- DCA to ATL route record80.9%
- DCA to DTW route record79.6%
- DCA to MSP route record79.9%
- DCA to MCO route record78.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.