Flight number record

AS 5

Alaska Airlines · Washington to Los Angeles

Route: DCA → LAX
Departs: 09:59
Flights: 364
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AS 5, check with Alaska Airlines.

AS 5 draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so AS 5 runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 111 extra late arrivals.

On time

66.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights

Avg delay

59 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

9.2%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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.

Schedule

When AS 5 flies

AS 5 is scheduled to leave Washington (DCA) at 09:59 local time and reach Los Angeles (LAX) at 12:59. That slot held for 319 of the 364 scheduled departures in the data, so the figures below describe one steady operation rather than a number that moved around the clock.

Departs 09:59319 flights87.6%
Departs 08:5945 flights12.4%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 09:59 departure sits in the 8am–11am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 84.1%, and AS 5 runs 18 points worse at 66.5%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

AS 5 next to DCA to LAX

Every carrier on DCA to LAX combined arrived on time 74.2% of the time across 1,457 flights, so AS 5 is 8 points behind it. Across its whole network Alaska Airlines managed 79.1%, which this flight trails by 13 points.

AS 5 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
AS 5thin sample	364	66.5%	59 min	1.10%	C
All Alaska Airlines on DCA–LAXthin sample	364	66.5%	59 min	1.10%	C
All carriers on DCA–LAX	1,457	74.2%	79 min	1.44%	C
Alaska Airlines, whole network	293,372	79.1%	52 min	1.28%	B

Across the year

AS 5 quarter by quarter

Quarter by quarter AS 5 held fairly steady: 64.8% in Jul–Sep 2025, 64.8% in Oct–Dec 2025, 64.4% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 71.9% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Jul–Sep 202592 flights64.8%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights64.8%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights64.4%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights71.9%

Scale runs 55% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, AS 5 ranged from 60.8% on Friday to 72.0% on Sunday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 11 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.

Delay causes

Why AS 5 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 42% of the 7,064 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.

National Airspace System
42%
Carrier
30%
Late-arriving aircraft
22%
Extreme weather
5%

42% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,995 minutes out of 7,064, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,064 delay minutes reported on AS 5.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% 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.

At 2,311 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

Every one of the 364 flights under AS 5 in the data flew DCA to LAX. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking AS 5

For a booking, AS 5 is one of the weaker ways to fly DCA to LAX: 8 points below the route as a whole. If the schedule allows, compare it with the other departures listed on the route page before settling on this one.

Where to go next

A flight number here means Alaska Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures