Washington, DC · departure reliability
DCA
Ronald Reagan Washington National
- Departures
- 142,250
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Carriers
- 10
- US rank
- #13 by volume
Washington
Ronald Reagan Washington National carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 142,250 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 9,505 at 78.7% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the ten carriers covered here at 78.7% on time across 9,505 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
3.69%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
78.7% on time here
These figures cover 142,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of DCA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 39,988 | 67.7% | 79 min | 5.71% | C− |
| American Airlines | 27,872 | 74.8% | 84 min | 2.67% | C |
| Republic Airways | 27,126 | 76.2% | 67 min | 4.33% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 16,065 | 74.1% | 64 min | 1.77% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 9,505 | 78.7% | 90 min | 2.54% | B |
| United Airlines | 6,900 | 77.8% | 89 min | 1.55% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 6,699 | 69.4% | 84 min | 2.96% | C |
| Envoy Air | 4,857 | 78.0% | 74 min | 3.77% | B− |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,185 | 71.1% | 59 min | 1.14% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 984 | 78.4% | 80 min | 0.91% | B+ |
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
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 73.3%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCA to BOS · Boston | 9,081 | 71.4% | 80 min | 3.88% | C− |
| DCA to ORD · Chicago | 6,992 | 74.3% | 88 min | 3.40% | C− |
| DCA to ATL · Atlanta | 6,813 | 78.8% | 80 min | 3.54% | B− |
| DCA to LGA · New York | 4,833 | 67.6% | 73 min | 5.86% | C− |
| DCA to MCO · Orlando | 4,588 | 74.9% | 83 min | 2.18% | C |
| DCA to BNA · Nashville | 4,329 | 77.1% | 66 min | 3.03% | B− |
| DCA to MIA · Miami | 3,959 | 76.2% | 84 min | 2.22% | B |
| DCA to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 3,308 | 77.6% | 85 min | 3.39% | B− |
| DCA to IAH · Houston | 3,200 | 81.4% | 84 min | 1.97% | B |
| DCA to DTW · Detroit | 2,979 | 76.6% | 86 min | 3.79% | B− |
| DCA to CLT · Charlotte | 2,677 | 78.5% | 113 min | 2.95% | B |
| DCA to MSP · Minneapolis | 2,574 | 77.3% | 90 min | 2.80% | B |
| DCA to JFK · New York | 2,496 | 78.1% | 70 min | 5.45% | B− |
| DCA to PVD · Providence | 2,452 | 72.8% | 67 min | 4.32% | C− |
| DCA to STL · St. Louis | 2,414 | 73.6% | 73 min | 2.40% | C |
| DCA to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 2,302 | 68.3% | 71 min | 2.00% | C |
| DCA to TPA · Tampa | 2,248 | 74.5% | 78 min | 2.40% | C |
| DCA to MDW · Chicago | 2,104 | 77.2% | 62 min | 2.76% | B |
| DCA to CMH · Columbus | 2,056 | 77.8% | 72 min | 3.31% | B− |
| DCA to IND · Indianapolis | 2,027 | 77.1% | 69 min | 3.85% | B− |
| DCA to RDU · Raleigh | 1,990 | 69.3% | 69 min | 4.97% | C− |
| DCA to MSY · New Orleans | 1,951 | 73.7% | 66 min | 2.72% | C |
| DCA to MCI · Kansas City | 1,927 | 71.7% | 64 min | 3.17% | C− |
| DCA to PBI · West Palm Beach | 1,796 | 73.9% | 75 min | 1.67% | C |
| DCA to CHS · Charleston | 1,755 | 70.2% | 79 min | 3.53% | 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 29 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am18,246 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am29,949 flights81.6%
- 11am–2pm23,229 flights76.3%
- 2pm–5pm25,318 flights67.0%
- 5pm–8pm25,772 flights61.1%
- 8pm–5am19,736 flights65.0%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.1% 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 29,949 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When DCA runs late
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 142,250 flights. The strip shows how much of DCA's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
December is the weak month at 66.8% on time, against 77.9% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 12,273 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.6%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why DCA gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 2.82 million delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% 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 2.82 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 2,818,693 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 3.69%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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.
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
142,250 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 3.69% 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. 136,609 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA delay questions
How often is Washington (DCA) delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.7% of the 142,250 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Washington (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 Washington (DCA)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.1%, 29 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 December delays on Washington (DCA)?
December is the weakest month at 66.8% on time, compared with 77.9% in September. Across the year that is 11 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 — Boston71.4%
- DCA to ORD — Chicago74.3%
- DCA to ATL — Atlanta78.8%
- DCA to LGA — New York67.6%
- DCA to MCO — Orlando74.9%
- DCA to BNA — Nashville77.1%
- PSA Airlines on-time record67.7%
- American Airlines on-time record74.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.