Route reliability record
DCA→CLT
Washington to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,677
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 331 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 2,677 DCA to CLT flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.8%, against 78.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,593 completed flights
Avg delay
119 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.91%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
79.8% on time across 2,443 flights
These figures cover 2,677 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 CLT
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 Airlines | 2,443 | 79.8% | 124 min | 3.19% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 234 | 65.9% | 88 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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 Charlotte
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BWI → CLTBaltimore to Charlotte | American Airlines | 83.3% | 84.6% | 1.57% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. IAD → CLTWashington to Charlotte | American Airlines | 81.4% | 83.0% | 1.87% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. IAD → CLTWashington to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 81.1% | 83.8% | 3.21% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. IAD → CLTWashington to Charlotte | Republic Airways | 79.1% | 81.3% | 2.65% | 8pm–5am, Wed | — |
| 5. DCA → CLTWashington to Charlotte | American Airlines | 77.3% | 79.8% | 3.19% | 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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am706 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am565 flights84.0%
- 11am–2pm520 flights72.7%
- 2pm–5pm165 flights73.0%
- 5pm–8pm671 flights66.4%
- 8pm–5am50 flights66.0%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.2% of the time, against 66.0% for the overnight window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 706 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to CLT 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 CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 66.0%, a wide gap of 26.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.2%
- 8–11am84.0%
- 11am–2pm72.7%
- 2–5pm73.0%
- 5–8pm66.4%
- 8pm–5am66.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 69.6% on time, 17 points below April, the best at 86.8%. 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 248 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.4%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 66,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 66,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. The split is drawn from 66,132 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 92.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.91%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
10.4% 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 331 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 67.5% on time across 2,682 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,677 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 CLT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.91% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 2,593 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to CLT questions
How often is DCA to CLT delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.5% of the 2,677 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is DCA to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
78.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.0%, 26 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 CLT?
July is the weakest month at 69.6% on time, compared with 86.8% in April. Across the year that is 17 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
- CLT to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on DCA to CLT79.8%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to CLT65.9%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- American Airlines on-time record79.8%
- PSA Airlines on-time record65.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to CLT and CLT 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.