Route reliability record
ATL→DCA
Atlanta to Washington
- Flights
- 6,798
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 547 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.4% 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 6,798 ATL to DCA flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 1,077 at 72.5% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.4% of the time and Saturday flights 76.6%, against 68.7% for the route overall.
PSA Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 72.5% on time across 1,077 flights.
Key figures
On time
68.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,533 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
72.5% on time across 1,077 flights
These figures cover 6,798 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to DCA
The four carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 35 | 88.6% | 98 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 1,077 | 72.5% | 126 min | 8.91% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 286 | 71.1% | 64 min | 2.80% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,076 | 70.4% | 67 min | 1.67% | C |
| Republic Airways | 474 | 70.2% | 56 min | 3.59% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,850 | 66.7% | 60 min | 2.44% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.9% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL 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.
- Delta 36013:1069.7% · 364 flights
- Delta 53721:5967.3% · 364 flights
- Delta 38009:4080.4% · 363 flights
- Delta 32518:5558.3% · 362 flights
- Delta 92607:2584.1% · 362 flights
- Delta 72719:5553.3% · 359 flights
- Delta 95016:5063.7% · 356 flights
- Delta 85015:3054.7% · 348 flights
- Delta 73711:0079.2% · 336 flights
- Delta 83217:5555.1% · 328 flights
- Delta 37820:5565.8% · 263 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → IADAtlanta to Washington | United Airlines | 80.8% | 81.6% | 0.92% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 632 09:35 |
| 2. ATL → BWIAtlanta to Baltimore | Delta Air Lines | 77.1% | 78.7% | 2.04% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 801 08:55 |
| 3. ATL → IADAtlanta to Washington | Delta Air Lines | 75.7% | 77.8% | 2.73% | 5am–8am, Thu | DL 1444 10:00 |
| 4. ATL → BWIAtlanta to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 75.5% | 77.0% | 1.93% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. ATL → DCAAtlanta to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 69.2% | 70.4% | 1.67% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 32 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am806 flights88.4%
- 8am–11am969 flights82.6%
- 11am–2pm1,299 flights74.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,272 flights61.1%
- 5pm–8pm1,012 flights56.5%
- 8pm–5am1,440 flights58.6%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.5% on time, against 88.4% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 1,440 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to DCA 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 ATL to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 56.5%, a wide gap of 31.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.4%
- 8–11am82.6%
- 11am–2pm74.1%
- 2–5pm61.1%
- 5–8pm56.5%
- 8pm–5am58.6%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 52.5% on time, 28 points below September, the best at 80.0%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 592 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 76.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.2%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 143,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%National Airspace System
- 31%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% 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 51,000 minutes out of 143,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 142,611 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 88.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.43%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
10.7% 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.
The 547 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.1% on time across 6,799 flights, 8 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,798 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 3.43% 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. 6,533 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to DCA questions
How often is ATL 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 31.3% of the 6,798 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 ATL to DCA?
PSA Airlines leads at 72.5% on time across 1,077 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 66.7%, a gap of 6 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 ATL to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.5%, 32 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 ATL to DCA?
July is the weakest month at 52.5% on time, compared with 80.0% in September. Across the year that is 28 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 ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on ATL to DCA72.5%
- Envoy Air on ATL to DCA71.1%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to DCA70.4%
- Republic Airways on ATL to DCA70.2%
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to DCA66.7%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- American Airlines on-time record88.6%
- PSA Airlines on-time record72.5%
- Envoy Air on-time record71.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ATL to DCA and DCA to ATL 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.