Route reliability record
BHM→DCA
Birmingham to Washington
- Flights
- 1,040
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 653 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 1,040 BHM to DCA flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly BHM to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.1% of the time and Saturday flights 82.4%, against 74.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 981 completed flights
Avg delay
120 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
74.3% on time across 973 flights
These figures cover 1,040 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 BHM 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 | 67 | 80.0% | 55 min | 2.99% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 973 | 74.3% | 124 min | 5.76% | C− |
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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 half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am360 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am315 flights74.1%
- 11am–2pm44 flights55.0%
- 2pm–5pm38 flights63.2%
- 5pm–8pm283 flights62.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 55.0% on time against 88.1% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 360 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BHM 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 BHM to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.1% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 55.0%, a wide gap of 33.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.1%
- 8–11am74.1%
- 11am–2pm55.0%
- 2–5pm63.2%
- 5–8pm62.2%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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 67.1% on time, 15 points below October, the best at 82.4%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 91 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 66.2%, a spread of 16 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 30,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 17%Extreme weather
- 13%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 17% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 29,743 reported delay minutes.
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 to one.
Cancellations run at 5.58%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
11.0% 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 653 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 69.2% on time across 1,043 flights, 6 points below 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,040 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.
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 5.58% 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. 981 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BHM to DCA questions
How often is BHM to DCA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.3% of the 1,040 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is BHM to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
74.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BHM to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.1% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 55.0%, 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 BHM to DCA?
July is the weakest month at 67.1% on time, compared with 82.4% in October. Across the year that is 15 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 BHM — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- BHM to ATL, a related route87.2%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- BHM to DFW, a related route80.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record74.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BHM to DCA and DCA to BHM 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.