Route reliability record
DCA→CLE
Washington to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,604
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 310 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 8.0% 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 1,604 DCA to CLE flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly DCA to CLE: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 72.9%, 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 1,472 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.98%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
61.9% on time across 1,402 flights
These figures cover 1,604 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.4% 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 CLE
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 | 46 | 93.3% | 22 min | 2.17% | A |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 149 | 87.7% | 33 min | 2.01% | A |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 85.7% | 18 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 1,402 | 61.9% | 81 min | 8.84% | D− |
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 Cleveland
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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → CLEWashington to Cleveland | United Airlines | 84.9% | 85.2% | 0.38% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 2. BWI → CLEBaltimore to Cleveland | Southwest Airlines | 74.2% | 75.9% | 2.27% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. DCA → CLEWashington to Cleveland | PSA Airlines | 56.4% | 61.9% | 8.84% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 43 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am163 flights91.7%
- 8am–11am315 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm236 flights66.8%
- 2pm–5pm252 flights56.4%
- 5pm–8pm324 flights48.6%
- 8pm–5am314 flights55.9%
Scale runs 40% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.6% on time, against 91.7% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 324 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to CLE 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 CLE, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 48.6%, a wide gap of 43.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.7%
- 8–11am83.6%
- 11am–2pm66.8%
- 2–5pm56.4%
- 5–8pm48.6%
- 8pm–5am55.9%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 54.1% on time, 29 points below September, the best at 82.8%. 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 141 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 72.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 54.6%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 40,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 40,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 39,997 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 91.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 7.98%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twelve 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
15.4% 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 310 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 63.8% on time across 1,605 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 1,604 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 CLE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.98% 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. 1,472 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to CLE questions
How often is DCA to CLE 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 1,604 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 CLE 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 CLE?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 48.6%, 43 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 CLE?
July is the weakest month at 54.1% on time, compared with 82.8% in September. Across the year that is 29 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
- CLE to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DCA to CLE87.7%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to CLE61.9%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.8%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record93.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record87.7%
- American Airlines on-time record85.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to CLE and CLE 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.