Route reliability record
DCA→ALB
Washington to Albany
- Flights
- 1,188
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 318 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 1,188 DCA to ALB flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Best time to fly DCA to ALB: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 76.7% of the time and Saturday flights 77.6%, against 65.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 117 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,116 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.72%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
65.0% on time across 1,037 flights
These figures cover 1,188 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.8% 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 DCA to ALB
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 59 | 70.2% | 36 min | 3.39% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 92 | 69.2% | 82 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| PSA Airlines | 1,037 | 65.0% | 85 min | 6.36% | C− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Albany
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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BWI → ALBBaltimore to Albany | Southwest Airlines | 79.0% | 80.4% | 1.78% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. DCA → ALBWashington to Albany | PSA Airlines | 60.9% | 65.0% | 6.36% | 8am–11am, Sat (route) | — |
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am2 flights—
- 8am–11am342 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm166 flights73.8%
- 2pm–5pm346 flights57.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am332 flights56.8%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.8% on time, against 76.7% for the 8am–11am 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 346 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to ALB 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 DCA to ALB, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 76.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 56.8%, a wide gap of 19.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am76.7%
- 11am–2pm73.8%
- 2–5pm57.9%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am56.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
December is the weak month at 53.8% on time, against 80.5% in September. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 117 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 59.1%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
62% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 31,637 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 76.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.72%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in fifteen 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
14.8% 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 318 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 runs 67.3% on time across 1,188 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 1,188 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 ALB after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.72% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,116 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to ALB questions
How often is DCA to ALB 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 1,188 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DCA to ALB compared with the rest of the country?
65.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 DCA to ALB?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 76.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.8%, 20 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 December delays on DCA to ALB?
December is the weakest month at 53.8% on time, compared with 80.5% in September. Across the year that is 27 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
- ALB to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ORD to ALB, a related route75.2%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record70.2%
- American Airlines on-time record69.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record65.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to ALB and ALB to DCA 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.