Carrier route record
AACHS→DCA
American Airlines · Charleston to Washington
- Flights
- 502
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CHS to DCA lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 502 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 375 at 77.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CHS to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 490 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.19%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.7%
Every carrier on CHS to DCA, 1,755 flights
These figures cover 502 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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
American against every carrier on CHS to DCA
American flew 502 of the 1,755 flights on CHS to DCA, about 29% of it. Its 76.9% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to PSA at 67.9%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 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.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 31 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am174 flights91.2%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm136 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm14 flights—
- 5pm–8pm130 flights60.2%
- 8pm–5am48 flights61.7%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.2% on time, against 91.2% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 174 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CHS to DCA through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025159 flights70.2%
- Oct–Dec 2025160 flights79.9%
- Jan–Mar 202664 flights74.6%
- Apr–Jun 2026119 flights82.9%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 76.9% on time across 502 flights.
American on CHS to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 82.9% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 70.2%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 126 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.4%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 11,000 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.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
60% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 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 10,635 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 91.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.19% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 65.0% on time across 503 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 502 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on CHS to DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 502 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 76.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 490 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CHS to DCA, every carrier
- American on DCA to CHS, the return leg
- Republic Airways on CHS to DCA77.4%
- PSA Airlines on CHS to DCA67.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.