Route reliability record
ALB→DCA
Albany to Washington
- Flights
- 1,183
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 318 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 1,183 ALB to DCA flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly ALB to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.1% of the time and Saturday flights 74.3%, against 68.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 95 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,114 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.24%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
67.8% on time across 1,090 flights
These figures cover 1,183 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.5% 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 airline is most reliable on ALB to DCA
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 57 | 78.2% | 56 min | 3.51% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 1,090 | 67.8% | 104 min | 5.50% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 36 | 61.1% | 80 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ALB to DCA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Albany to Washington
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ALB → BWIAlbany to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 87.7% | 88.8% | 1.20% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. ALB → DCAAlbany to Washington | PSA Airlines | 64.1% | 67.8% | 5.50% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | OH 5101 06:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am331 flights87.1%
- 8am–11am11 flights—
- 11am–2pm359 flights60.7%
- 2pm–5pm155 flights63.8%
- 5pm–8pm327 flights58.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.1% on time, against 87.1% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 359 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 81.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 117 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 74.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 62.9%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 36,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 36,095 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 87.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.24%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.5% 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 318 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 67.6% on time across 1,183 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,183 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.24% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 1,114 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ALB to DCA questions
How often is ALB to DCA delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 31.9% of the 1,183 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is ALB to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
68.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 10 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ALB to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.1%, 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 March delays on ALB to DCA?
March is the weakest month at 56.8% on time, compared with 81.3% in April. Across the year that is 25 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 ALB — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- ALB to ORD, a related route76.6%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- ALB to BWI, a related route88.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record67.8%
- American Airlines on-time record61.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ALB to DCA and DCA to ALB are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.