Carrier route record
MQDCA→BUF
Envoy Air · Washington to Buffalo
- Flights
- 164
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 14%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Envoy Air.
Envoy on DCA to BUF draws a C−. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 164 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Envoy on DCA to BUF runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 114 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 154 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
64.9%
Every carrier on DCA to BUF, 1,162 flights
These figures cover 164 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Envoy against every carrier on DCA to BUF
Envoy flew 164 of the 1,162 flights on DCA to BUF, about 14% of it. Its 66.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 64.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 83.3% to Republic at 64.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 83.3% | 47 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Envoy Air (this page)thin sample | 164 | 66.2% | 67 min | 6.10% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 729 | 64.6% | 86 min | 4.80% | D− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 263 | 64.1% | 50 min | 5.70% | D− |
Departure window
When Envoy runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 164 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Envoy's DCA to BUF record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 66.2% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
Envoy on DCA to BUF through the year
- Oct–Dec 202539 flights68.6%
- Jan–Mar 202682 flights55.8%
- Apr–Jun 202643 flights83.3%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 66.2% on time across 164 flights.
Envoy on DCA to BUF did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 83.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 55.8%, a swing of 28 points on roughly 55 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Delay causes
Why Envoy runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 71% of the 3,461 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 71%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 10%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
71% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 3,461 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 3,461 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 6.10%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 296 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 53.4% on time across 164 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 164 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.
What to do with this
Booking Envoy on DCA to BUF
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.10% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 2pm–5pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 154 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to BUF, every carrier
- Envoy on BUF to DCA, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on DCA to BUF64.6%
- Republic Airways on DCA to BUF64.1%
- Envoy Air network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.