Route reliability record
DCA→CAE
Washington to Columbia
- Flights
- 1,092
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 408 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.0% 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 1,092 DCA to CAE flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to CAE: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.7% of the time and Saturday flights 72.0%, against 66.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 106 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,027 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.95%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
64.4% on time across 927 flights
These figures cover 1,092 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.5% 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 CAE
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 | 116 | 82.7% | 54 min | 5.17% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 49 | 72.7% | 55 min | 10.20% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 927 | 64.4% | 77 min | 5.83% | D− |
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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–8am38 flights94.7%
- 8am–11am324 flights77.9%
- 11am–2pm73 flights78.1%
- 2pm–5pm111 flights49.0%
- 5pm–8pm237 flights56.6%
- 8pm–5am309 flights62.1%
Scale runs 40% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.7% of the time, against 49.0% for the afternoon window. That is 46 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 324 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to CAE 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 CAE, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.7% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 49.0%, a wide gap of 45.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.7%
- 8–11am77.9%
- 11am–2pm78.1%
- 2–5pm49.0%
- 5–8pm56.6%
- 8pm–5am62.1%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 39 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 39.5% on time, 39 points below September, the best at 78.9%. 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 115 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 72.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 61.7%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 26,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 6%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 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 25,571 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 94.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.95%, 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
13.5% 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 408 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 72.6% on time across 1,093 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. 1,092 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 CAE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.95% 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. 1,027 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to CAE questions
How often is DCA to CAE 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 33.3% of the 1,092 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DCA to CAE compared with the rest of the country?
66.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 11 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 CAE?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 49.0%, 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 July delays on DCA to CAE?
July is the weakest month at 39.5% on time, compared with 78.9% in September. Across the year that is 39 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
- CAE to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DCA to CAE82.7%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to CAE64.4%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ATL to CAE, a related route83.1%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.7%
- Envoy Air on-time record72.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record64.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to CAE and CAE to DCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DCA to CAE’s on-time badge on your site
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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.