Washington, DC · departure reliability
DCA
Ronald Reagan Washington National
- Departures
- 142,229
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Carriers
- 10
- US rank
- #13 by volume
Washington
Ronald Reagan Washington National carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 142,229 flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 983 at 78.1% on time.
Frontier Airlines is the most reliable of the ten carriers covered here at 78.1% on time across 983 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.2%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
3.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Frontier
78.1% on time here
These figures cover 142,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of DCA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 40,071 | 65.9% | 82 min | 6.39% | C− |
| American Airlines | 27,638 | 74.7% | 84 min | 2.57% | C |
| Republic Airways | 27,158 | 75.0% | 69 min | 4.51% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 16,026 | 72.7% | 63 min | 2.23% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 9,579 | 77.9% | 88 min | 2.47% | B |
| United Airlines | 6,887 | 77.6% | 84 min | 1.63% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 6,726 | 67.6% | 83 min | 4.07% | C− |
| Envoy Air | 4,875 | 76.9% | 69 min | 3.20% | B− |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,182 | 71.9% | 56 min | 1.01% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 983 | 78.1% | 81 min | 1.02% | B |
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
Busiest routes out of DCA
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from DCA, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 72.2%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCA to BOS · Boston | 9,104 | 70.1% | 80 min | 4.34% | C− |
| DCA to ORD · Chicago | 7,112 | 73.8% | 86 min | 3.56% | C− |
| DCA to ATL · Atlanta | 6,799 | 77.1% | 79 min | 3.60% | B− |
| DCA to LGA · New York | 4,843 | 65.6% | 78 min | 6.44% | C− |
| DCA to MCO · Orlando | 4,593 | 75.2% | 83 min | 2.57% | B |
| DCA to BNA · Nashville | 4,384 | 75.7% | 65 min | 3.06% | B− |
| DCA to MIA · Miami | 3,954 | 76.9% | 76 min | 2.12% | B |
| DCA to IAH · Houston | 3,333 | 80.3% | 79 min | 2.31% | B |
| DCA to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 3,304 | 78.8% | 88 min | 2.85% | B |
| DCA to DTW · Detroit | 2,972 | 75.3% | 82 min | 4.04% | B− |
| DCA to CLT · Charlotte | 2,677 | 78.5% | 119 min | 2.91% | B |
| DCA to MSP · Minneapolis | 2,632 | 75.6% | 90 min | 3.23% | B− |
| DCA to JFK · New York | 2,486 | 77.0% | 73 min | 5.99% | B− |
| DCA to PVD · Providence | 2,426 | 72.5% | 68 min | 5.28% | C− |
| DCA to STL · St. Louis | 2,415 | 71.9% | 70 min | 3.11% | C− |
| DCA to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 2,320 | 67.7% | 74 min | 2.80% | C |
| DCA to TPA · Tampa | 2,248 | 73.9% | 79 min | 2.62% | C |
| DCA to MDW · Chicago | 2,099 | 75.5% | 66 min | 2.76% | B |
| DCA to CMH · Columbus | 2,051 | 77.6% | 72 min | 3.85% | B− |
| DCA to IND · Indianapolis | 2,022 | 77.1% | 63 min | 3.81% | B− |
| DCA to RDU · Raleigh | 2,016 | 67.7% | 74 min | 5.26% | C− |
| DCA to MCI · Kansas City | 1,952 | 70.7% | 66 min | 3.74% | C− |
| DCA to MSY · New Orleans | 1,948 | 72.9% | 69 min | 3.34% | C− |
| DCA to CHS · Charleston | 1,748 | 68.6% | 78 min | 3.66% | C− |
| DCA to DAL · Dallas | 1,733 | 71.9% | 65 min | 2.08% | C |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave DCA
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am18,429 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am29,890 flights80.6%
- 11am–2pm22,955 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm25,555 flights65.2%
- 5pm–8pm25,911 flights60.1%
- 8pm–5am19,489 flights63.7%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.1% on time, against 89.7% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 29,890 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA departures by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On departures from Washington (DCA), the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.1%, a wide gap of 29.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.7%
- 8–11am80.6%
- 11am–2pm75.0%
- 2–5pm65.2%
- 5–8pm60.1%
- 8pm–5am63.7%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When DCA runs late
DCA's year swings by 15 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 63.2% on time, 15 points below September, the best at 77.9%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 12,273 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.3%, a spread of 11 points.
DCA month by month
Delay causes
Why DCA gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 2.94 million delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 2.94 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 2,938,000 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.99%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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.
11.4% 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.
142,229 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.
What to do with this
Flying out of DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.99% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 136,139 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA delay questions
How often is Washington (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 27.8% of the 142,229 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Washington (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 Washington (DCA)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.1%, 30 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 Washington (DCA)?
July is the weakest month at 63.2% on time, compared with 77.9% in September. Across the year that is 15 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
- DCA to BOS — Boston70.1%
- DCA to ORD — Chicago73.8%
- DCA to ATL — Atlanta77.1%
- DCA to LGA — New York65.6%
- DCA to MCO — Orlando75.2%
- DCA to BNA — Nashville75.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record65.9%
- American Airlines on-time record74.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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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.