Route reliability record
DCA→BHM
Washington to Birmingham
- Flights
- 1,043
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 653 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.3% 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 1,043 DCA to BHM flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to BHM: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 78.5% of the time and Saturday flights 75.5%, against 69.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 81 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 983 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.27%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
68.6% on time across 976 flights
These figures cover 1,043 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.9% 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 DCA to BHM
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 66 | 77.4% | 50 min | 6.06% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 976 | 68.6% | 84 min | 5.23% | C− |
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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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am359 flights78.5%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm346 flights64.2%
- 5pm–8pm10 flights—
- 8pm–5am328 flights63.9%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.9% on time, against 78.5% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 359 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to BHM 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 BHM, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 78.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.9%, a wide gap of 14.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am78.5%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm64.2%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am63.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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 52.5% on time, 31 points below September, the best at 83.5%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 75.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.7%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 24,886 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 78.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.27%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
13.9% 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.
The 653 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.7% on time across 1,040 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,043 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 BHM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.27% 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. 983 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to BHM questions
How often is DCA to BHM 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 30.8% of the 1,043 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 BHM compared with the rest of the country?
69.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 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 BHM?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 78.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.9%, 15 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 BHM?
July is the weakest month at 52.5% on time, compared with 83.5% in September. Across the year that is 31 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
- BHM to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ATL to BHM, a related route83.1%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record68.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to BHM and BHM 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.