Route reliability record
CLT→DCA
Charlotte to Washington
- Flights
- 2,682
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 331 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 2,682 CLT to DCA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
Best time to fly CLT to DCA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 76.8% of the time and Saturday flights 75.8%, against 67.5% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 98 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,603 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.57%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
66.9% on time across 2,444 flights
These figures cover 2,682 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 238 | 72.9% | 72 min | 0.42% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 2,444 | 66.9% | 69 min | 2.78% | C |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte 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. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | Republic Airways | 84.1% | 86.6% | 2.86% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | PSA Airlines | 78.9% | 81.5% | 3.21% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. CLT → BWICharlotte to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 76.3% | 77.8% | 1.87% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. CLT → BWICharlotte to Baltimore | American Airlines | 75.2% | 76.4% | 1.52% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | American Airlines | 67.4% | 68.7% | 1.86% | 11am–2pm, 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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am71 flights68.6%
- 8am–11am642 flights76.8%
- 11am–2pm363 flights69.4%
- 2pm–5pm463 flights58.7%
- 5pm–8pm434 flights62.4%
- 8pm–5am709 flights66.6%
Scale runs 50% to 80%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 76.8% of the time, against 58.7% for the afternoon window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 709 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT 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 CLT to DCA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 76.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 58.7%, a wide gap of 18.1 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am68.6%
- 8–11am76.8%
- 11am–2pm69.4%
- 2–5pm58.7%
- 5–8pm62.4%
- 8pm–5am66.6%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 80.0% 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 248 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 75.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 60.1%, a spread of 16 points.
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 59,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 59,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 58,790 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 20,000 minutes out of 59,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.57%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
10.9% 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 331 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.5% on time across 2,677 flights, 11 points above 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,682 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 80.0% on time and November 59.2%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 2,603 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to DCA questions
How often is CLT 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 32.5% of the 2,682 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
67.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 10 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to DCA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 76.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 58.7%, 18 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 November delays on CLT to DCA?
November is the weakest month at 59.2% on time, compared with 80.0% in May. Across the year that is 21 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 CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on CLT to DCA72.9%
- American Airlines on CLT to DCA66.9%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record72.9%
- American Airlines on-time record66.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CLT to DCA and DCA to CLT 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.