Route reliability record
CHS→DCA
Charleston to Washington
- Flights
- 1,755
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 444 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.0% 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 1,755 CHS to DCA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 375 at 77.4% on time.
Best time to fly CHS to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Saturday flights 79.2%, against 72.7% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.4% on time across 375 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,659 completed flights
Avg delay
107 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.01%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
77.4% on time across 375 flights
These figures cover 1,755 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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 CHS to DCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 77.4% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 67.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 874 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 100.0% | — | 25.00% | A− |
| Republic Airways | 375 | 77.4% | 71 min | 4.27% | B− |
| American Airlines | 502 | 76.9% | 94 min | 2.19% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 874 | 67.9% | 125 min | 6.86% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.9% 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charleston 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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CHS → IADCharleston to Washington | United Airlines | 86.0% | 86.6% | 0.65% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. CHS → BWICharleston to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 80.5% | 81.9% | 1.71% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | — |
| 3. CHS → DCACharleston to Washington | American Airlines | 75.2% | 76.9% | 2.19% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. CHS → DCACharleston to Washington | Republic Airways | 74.1% | 77.4% | 4.27% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 5. CHS → DCACharleston to Washington | PSA Airlines | 63.2% | 67.9% | 6.86% | 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 33 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am351 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am53 flights78.8%
- 11am–2pm356 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm518 flights68.7%
- 5pm–8pm391 flights57.1%
- 8pm–5am86 flights58.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.1% on time, against 90.6% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 518 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 63.0% on time, against 81.1% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 152 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 66.0%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 49,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 49,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 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. The split is drawn from 48,668 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 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.01%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 444 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 70.2% on time across 1,755 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 1,755 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 5.01% 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. 1,659 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CHS to DCA questions
How often is CHS 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 27.3% of the 1,755 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CHS to DCA?
Republic Airways leads at 77.4% on time across 375 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 67.9%, a gap of 10 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 CHS to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.1%, 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 February delays on CHS to DCA?
February is the weakest month at 63.0% on time, compared with 81.1% in August. Across the year that is 18 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 CHS — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on CHS to DCA77.4%
- American Airlines on CHS to DCA76.9%
- PSA Airlines on CHS to DCA67.9%
- CHS to ATL, a related route90.2%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- CHS to CLT, a related route83.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.4%
- American Airlines on-time record76.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CHS to DCA and DCA to CHS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed CHS 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.