Route reliability record
DAY→DCA
Dayton to Washington
- Flights
- 959
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 391 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 959 DAY to DCA flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly DAY to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.3% of the time and Saturday flights 80.2%, against 70.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 65 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 913 completed flights
Avg delay
114 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
70.8% on time across 959 flights
These figures cover 959 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.6% 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 DAY 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 Airlines | 959 | 70.8% | 114 min | 4.17% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on DAY to DCA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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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 46 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am349 flights85.3%
- 8am–11am321 flights79.4%
- 11am–2pm7 flights—
- 2pm–5pm24 flights—
- 5pm–8pm228 flights39.4%
- 8pm–5am30 flights—
Scale runs 30% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 39.4% on time, against 85.3% 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. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 349 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DAY 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 DAY to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 39.4%, a wide gap of 45.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.3%
- 8–11am79.4%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm39.4%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 30% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 61.2%. June is the strongest month at 84.6%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 23 points. October was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.4%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 30,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 30,488 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 85.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.17%, against 1.89% 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
15.6% 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 391 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 63.2% on time across 956 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 959 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.
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 4.17% 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. 913 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DAY to DCA questions
How often is DAY to DCA delayed?
Roughly 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 29.2% of the 959 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is DAY to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
70.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DAY to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 39.4%, 46 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 DAY to DCA?
March is the weakest month at 61.2% on time, compared with 84.6% in June. Across the year that is 23 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 DAY — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- DAY to ORD, a related route72.7%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- DAY to ATL, a related route89.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record70.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DAY to DCA and DCA to DAY 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.