Route reliability record

ATL→DCA

Atlanta to Washington

Flights: 6,817
Period: June 2025 to May 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 1.8% 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 6,817 flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 1,002 at 74.6% on time.

PSA Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 74.6% on time across 1,002 flights.

On time

69.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,559 completed flights

Avg delay

71 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.36%

National rate is 1.80%

Best carrier

PSA

74.6% on time across 1,002 flights

These figures cover 6,817 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 ATL to DCA

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. PSA Airlines arrives on time 74.6% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 65.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,830 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on ATL to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PSA Airlines	1,002	74.6%	131 min	7.58%	C−
Republic Airways	491	73.9%	56 min	2.85%	C
Southwest Airlines	1,169	73.0%	72 min	1.71%	C
American Airlinesthin sample	74	69.0%	165 min	4.05%	C−
Envoy Airthin sample	251	68.9%	57 min	5.98%	C−
Delta Air Lines	3,830	65.9%	60 min	2.64%	C

PSA Airlines cancels 7.6% 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.

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 33 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am855 flights87.8%
8am–11am980 flights83.6%
11am–2pm1,344 flights76.2%
2pm–5pm1,172 flights60.4%
5pm–8pm1,095 flights55.2%
8pm–5am1,371 flights58.3%

Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.2% on time, against 87.8% 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.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 24 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, July worst

July is the worst month at 56.2% on time, 24 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.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.4%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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.

National Airspace System
35%
Late-arriving aircraft
30%
Carrier
30%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

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 50,000 minutes out of 143,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

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 87.8% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.36%, against 1.80% 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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.

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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.8% on time across 6,819 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 6,817 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.

What to do with this

Booking this route

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.36% 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.

Common questions

ATL to DCA questions

How often is ATL to DCA delayed?

About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.9% of the 6,817 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% 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 74.6% on time across 1,002 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 65.9%, a gap of 9 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 87.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.2%, 33 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 56.2% on time, compared with 80.0% in September. Across the year that is 24 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

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.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures