Route reliability record
BOS→DCA
Boston to Washington
- Flights
- 9,105
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 399 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% 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 9,105 BOS to DCA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 3,999 at 75.1% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.2% of the time and Saturday flights 81.5%, against 72.6% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 75.1% on time across 3,999 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 8,702 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
75.1% on time across 3,999 flights
These figures cover 9,105 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BOS to DCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 75.1% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 66.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,626 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 241 | 78.5% | 68 min | 6.64% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 3,999 | 75.1% | 62 min | 3.90% | B− |
| American Airlines | 2,231 | 75.1% | 88 min | 3.27% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,626 | 66.3% | 74 min | 4.87% | C− |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 8 | 42.9% | 45 min | 12.50% | F− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.9% 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 BOS 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Boston 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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MHT → BWIManchester to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 87.7% | 88.4% | 0.76% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. PVD → BWIProvidence to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 85.2% | 86.9% | 1.95% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. BOS → IADBoston to Washington | United Airlines | 81.4% | 83.3% | 2.28% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | UA 1734 05:45 |
| 4. BOS → BWIBoston to Baltimore | Republic Airways | 78.3% | 81.8% | 4.28% | 5am–8am, Thu | YX 5644 17:25 |
| 5. PVD → DCAProvidence to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 75.2% | 76.8% | 2.09% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 37 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,588 flights90.2%
- 8am–11am2,010 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm1,419 flights73.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,704 flights63.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,334 flights53.6%
- 8pm–5am1,050 flights58.4%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.6% on time, against 90.2% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 2,010 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS 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 BOS to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 53.6%, a wide gap of 36.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.2%
- 8–11am84.7%
- 11am–2pm73.7%
- 2–5pm63.9%
- 5–8pm53.6%
- 8pm–5am58.4%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 9,105 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
July is the worst month at 68.1% on time, 11 points below May, the best at 79.1%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 809 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.9%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 172,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 172,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 172,196 reported delay minutes.
32% 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 56,000 minutes out of 172,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.11%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
11.3% 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 399 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 70.1% on time across 9,104 flights, within 3 points 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 9,105 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 4.11% 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. 8,702 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to DCA questions
How often is BOS to DCA delayed?
Roughly 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 27.4% of the 9,105 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 BOS to DCA?
Republic Airways leads at 75.1% on time across 3,999 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 66.3%, 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 BOS to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.6%, 37 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 BOS to DCA?
July is the weakest month at 68.1% on time, compared with 79.1% in May. Across the year that is 11 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 BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on BOS to DCA78.5%
- Republic Airways on BOS to DCA75.1%
- American Airlines on BOS to DCA75.1%
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to DCA66.3%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- ORD to DCA, a related route69.0%
- BOS to LGA, a related route76.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record78.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.1%
- American Airlines on-time record75.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BOS to DCA and DCA to BOS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed BOS to DCA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.