Route reliability record
BDL→DCA
Hartford to Washington
- Flights
- 1,681
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 313 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.3% 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 1,681 BDL to DCA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 403 at 73.6% on time.
Best time to fly BDL to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Saturday flights 78.6%, against 68.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 89 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,574 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.25%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
73.6% on time across 403 flights
These figures cover 1,681 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.4% 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 BDL to DCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 73.6% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 67.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 986 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 403 | 73.6% | 65 min | 2.23% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 986 | 67.5% | 90 min | 8.01% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 284 | 64.2% | 94 min | 5.63% | D− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 8 | 50.0% | 26 min | 12.50% | F− |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.0% 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Hartford 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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BDL → IADHartford to Washington | United Airlines | 84.0% | 85.3% | 1.49% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 635 06:00 |
| 2. BDL → BWIHartford to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 81.1% | 82.6% | 1.80% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. BDL → DCAHartford to Washington | Republic Airways | 72.0% | 73.6% | 2.23% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. BDL → DCAHartford to Washington | PSA Airlines | 62.1% | 67.5% | 8.01% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 38 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am337 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am315 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm340 flights70.6%
- 2pm–5pm107 flights52.6%
- 5pm–8pm544 flights51.5%
- 8pm–5am38 flights73.0%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.5% on time, against 89.4% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 544 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BDL 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 BDL to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 51.5%, a wide gap of 37.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am75.8%
- 11am–2pm70.6%
- 2–5pm52.6%
- 5–8pm51.5%
- 8pm–5am73.0%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
December is the weak month at 58.5% on time, against 77.4% in May. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 159 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.6%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 42,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 42,284 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 89.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.25%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
13.4% 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.
At 313 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 68.3% on time across 1,680 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 1,681 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 6.25% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,574 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BDL to DCA questions
How often is BDL 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 31.6% of the 1,681 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BDL to DCA?
Republic Airways leads at 73.6% on time across 403 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 67.5%, 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 BDL to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 51.5%, 38 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 BDL to DCA?
December is the weakest month at 58.5% on time, compared with 77.4% in May. Across the year that is 19 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 BDL — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on BDL to DCA73.6%
- PSA Airlines on BDL to DCA67.5%
- American Airlines on BDL to DCA64.2%
- BDL to ORD, a related route75.9%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- BDL to ATL, a related route84.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record73.6%
- PSA Airlines on-time record67.5%
- American Airlines on-time record64.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BDL to DCA and DCA to BDL 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.