Carrier performance at one airport
WN→DCA
Southwest Airlines at Ronald Reagan Washington National
- Departures
- 16,026
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 18
- Rank here
- #7 of 10
Southwest Airlines at Washington sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 16,026 flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 983 at 78.1% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs half a point ahead of the 72.1% 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
72.7%
15,614 completed departures
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.23%
At DCA, this carrier only
Rank here
#7
Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at DCA
These figures cover 16,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Against the competition
Every carrier at DCA, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Frontier Airlines arrives on time 78.1% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 65.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 40,071 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 983 | 78.1% | 81 min | 1.02% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 9,579 | 77.9% | 88 min | 2.47% | B |
| United Airlines | 6,887 | 77.6% | 84 min | 1.63% | B |
| Envoy Air | 4,875 | 76.9% | 69 min | 3.20% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 27,158 | 75.0% | 69 min | 4.51% | B− |
| American Airlines | 27,638 | 74.7% | 84 min | 2.57% | C |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 16,026 | 72.7% | 63 min | 2.23% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,182 | 71.9% | 56 min | 1.01% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 6,726 | 67.6% | 83 min | 4.07% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 40,071 | 65.9% | 82 min | 6.39% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.4% 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 Southwest Airlines flies from DCA
Southwest Airlines operates 18 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 MDW · Chicago | 2,099 | 75.5% | 66 min | 2.76% | B |
| DCA to DAL · Dallas | 1,733 | 71.9% | 65 min | 2.08% | C |
| DCA to BNA · Nashville | 1,707 | 74.4% | 58 min | 2.23% | C |
| DCA to STL · St. Louis | 1,403 | 73.7% | 61 min | 1.92% | C |
| DCA to MCO · Orlando | 1,093 | 73.2% | 67 min | 2.01% | C |
| DCA to ATL · Atlanta | 1,075 | 78.9% | 61 min | 2.51% | B |
| DCA to HOU · Houston | 1,053 | 75.4% | 60 min | 2.18% | B |
| DCA to MCI · Kansas City | 998 | 71.3% | 64 min | 2.71% | C |
| DCA to MSY · New Orleans | 704 | 70.8% | 59 min | 2.84% | C |
| DCA to TPA · Tampa | 698 | 78.8% | 67 min | 2.44% | B |
| DCA to MKE · Milwaukee | 681 | 82.5% | 59 min | 2.06% | B |
| DCA to PVD · Providence | 670 | 74.7% | 64 min | 2.54% | C |
| DCA to LAS · Las Vegas | 365 | 49.4% | 62 min | 1.64% | F |
| DCA to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 365 | 59.5% | 64 min | 1.64% | D |
| DCA to AUS · Austinthin sample | 364 | 52.9% | 60 min | 0.82% | F+ |
| DCA to CMH · Columbusthin sample | 349 | 77.1% | 54 min | 0.57% | B+ |
| DCA to OMA · Omahathin sample | 341 | 55.0% | 76 min | 2.05% | D |
| DCA to OKC · Oklahoma Citythin sample | 328 | 64.3% | 64 min | 2.13% | D |
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 36 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am3,032 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am1,837 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm3,430 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm3,616 flights61.9%
- 5pm–8pm3,192 flights56.4%
- 8pm–5am919 flights63.0%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.4% on time, against 92.5% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 3,616 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 57.0% on time, 29 points below January, the best at 85.5%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 1,382 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 268,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 267,921 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.23% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
16,026 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 85.5% on time and July 57.0%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 15,614 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Southwest Airlines at DCA
How often is Southwest Airlines at DCA delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.3% of the 16,026 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at DCA?
Frontier Airlines leads at 78.1% on time across 983 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 65.9%, a gap of 12 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 Southwest Airlines at DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.4%, 36 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 Southwest Airlines at DCA?
July is the weakest month at 57.0% on time, compared with 85.5% in January. Across the year that is 29 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
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) all carriers
- DCA to MDW route record75.5%
- DCA to DAL route record71.9%
- DCA to BNA route record74.4%
- DCA to STL route record73.7%
- Do airlines run better at their own hubs?
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.