Route reliability record
DCA→BDL
Washington to Hartford
- Flights
- 1,680
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 313 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.2% 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 1,680 DCA to BDL flights, of which Republic Airways flew 402 at 74.0% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to BDL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 81.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 72.7%, against 68.3% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 90 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,575 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.19%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
74.0% on time across 402 flights
These figures cover 1,680 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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 BDL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 74.0% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 67.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 984 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 8 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 402 | 74.0% | 54 min | 2.24% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 984 | 67.8% | 78 min | 8.13% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 286 | 60.4% | 73 min | 5.24% | D− |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.1% 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Hartford
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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → BDLWashington to Hartford | United Airlines | 84.8% | 85.8% | 1.17% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 444 22:25 |
| 2. BWI → BDLBaltimore to Hartford | Southwest Airlines | 79.4% | 81.2% | 2.21% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. DCA → BDLWashington to Hartford | Republic Airways | 72.3% | 74.0% | 2.24% | 8am–11am, Sun | — |
| 4. DCA → BDLWashington to Hartford | PSA Airlines | 62.3% | 67.8% | 8.13% | 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 27 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am269 flights81.8%
- 8am–11am354 flights79.1%
- 11am–2pm104 flights70.1%
- 2pm–5pm292 flights66.1%
- 5pm–8pm317 flights55.2%
- 8pm–5am344 flights58.3%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.2% on time, against 81.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 354 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to BDL 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 BDL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 81.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 55.2%, a wide gap of 26.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am81.8%
- 8–11am79.1%
- 11am–2pm70.1%
- 2–5pm66.1%
- 5–8pm55.2%
- 8pm–5am58.3%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
July is the worst month at 56.3% on time, 20 points below April, the best at 76.7%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. June was the busiest month here, with 159 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 72.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.5%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
60% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 36,062 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 81.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.19%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
12.2% 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 313 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 68.4% on time across 1,681 flights, within half a point 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 1,680 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 BDL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.19% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 1,575 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to BDL questions
How often is DCA to BDL 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 31.7% of the 1,680 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to BDL?
Republic Airways leads at 74.0% on time across 402 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 67.8%, a gap of 6 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to BDL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 81.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.2%, 27 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 July delays on DCA to BDL?
July is the weakest month at 56.3% on time, compared with 76.7% in April. Across the year that is 20 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
- BDL to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DCA to BDL74.0%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to BDL67.8%
- American Airlines on DCA to BDL60.4%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ORD to BDL, a related route74.5%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record67.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to BDL and BDL 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.