Route reliability record
CLE→DCA
Cleveland to Washington
- Flights
- 1,609
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 310 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 7.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 1,609 CLE to DCA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly CLE to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.7% of the time and Saturday flights 74.2%, against 65.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 120 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,484 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.77%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
66.6% on time across 1,434 flights
These figures cover 1,609 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.8% 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 CLE 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 85.7% | 17 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 19 | 84.2% | 30 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 1,434 | 66.6% | 104 min | 8.51% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 149 | 53.4% | 61 min | 2.01% | F |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Cleveland 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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLE → IADCleveland to Washington | United Airlines | 87.8% | 88.0% | 0.28% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. CLE → BWICleveland to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 84.3% | 85.5% | 1.44% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. CLE → DCACleveland to Washington | PSA Airlines | 60.9% | 66.6% | 8.51% | 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 44 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am338 flights83.7%
- 8am–11am309 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm302 flights59.6%
- 2pm–5pm220 flights57.6%
- 5pm–8pm275 flights52.2%
- 8pm–5am165 flights40.1%
Scale runs 30% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 40.1% on time, against 83.7% 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 338 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 79.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 141 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 74.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.7%. 16 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 45% of the 50,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% 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 50,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 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 49,934 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 83.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 7.77%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twelve 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. 14.8% 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 310 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 67.1% on time across 1,608 flights, within 2 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 1,609 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 7.77% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,484 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLE to DCA questions
How often is CLE to DCA delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 34.4% of the 1,609 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is CLE to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
65.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 12 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLE to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 40.1%, 44 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 March delays on CLE to DCA?
March is the weakest month at 51.7% on time, compared with 79.3% in September. Across the year that is 28 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 CLE — the return legseparate record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on CLE to DCA66.6%
- Envoy Air on CLE to DCA53.4%
- CLE to ORD, a related route74.6%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- CLE to ATL, a related route85.4%
- American Airlines on-time record85.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record84.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record66.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CLE to DCA and DCA to CLE 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.