Route reliability record
BOS→DCA
Boston to Washington
- Flights
- 9,071
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 399 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 9,071 flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,238 at 76.2% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 76.2% on time across 2,238 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 8,690 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.87%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
American
76.2% on time across 2,238 flights
These figures cover 9,071 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 BOS to DCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 76.2% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 69.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,645 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 176 | 83.8% | 58 min | 3.98% | B− |
| American Airlines | 2,238 | 76.2% | 98 min | 3.31% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 4,012 | 74.9% | 62 min | 4.44% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,645 | 69.2% | 71 min | 3.48% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 4.4% 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 34 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,597 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am1,848 flights85.2%
- 11am–2pm1,646 flights77.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,699 flights62.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,335 flights56.0%
- 8pm–5am946 flights59.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.0% on time, against 90.3% 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 13 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.
February is the weak month at 69.0% on time, against 82.3% in August. 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.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.9%. 16 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 167,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 167,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
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 54,000 minutes out of 167,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.87%, against 1.80% 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
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.
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 70.8% on time across 9,071 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 9,071 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 3.87% 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
BOS to DCA questions
How often is BOS to DCA delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.3% of the 9,071 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 BOS to DCA?
American Airlines leads at 76.2% on time across 2,238 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 69.2%, a gap of 7 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 90.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.0%, 34 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 February delays on BOS to DCA?
February is the weakest month at 69.0% on time, compared with 82.3% in August. Across the year that is 13 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-time record83.8%
- American Airlines on-time record76.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.