Route reliability record
DCA→DTW
Washington to Detroit
- Flights
- 2,979
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 405 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,979 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,745 at 79.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,862 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.79%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
79.6% on time across 1,745 flights
These figures cover 2,979 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to DTW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 79.6% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 69.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 957 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 271 | 81.2% | 72 min | 3.32% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,745 | 79.6% | 88 min | 2.46% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 396 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 957 | 69.5% | 85 min | 6.37% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 30 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am561 flights91.8%
- 8am–11am507 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm567 flights83.6%
- 2pm–5pm213 flights66.3%
- 5pm–8pm520 flights62.2%
- 8pm–5am611 flights64.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.2% on time, against 91.8% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 611 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 66.7% on time, 21 points below October, the best at 88.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 271 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.9%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 58,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 4%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 58,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 57,823 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 91.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.79%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.4% 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 405 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 68.6% on time across 2,978 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,979 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.79% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 2,862 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to DTW questions
How often is DCA to DTW delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.4% of the 2,979 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to DTW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 79.6% on time across 1,745 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 69.5%, a gap of 10 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.2%, 30 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 DTW?
July is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 88.0% in October. Across the year that is 21 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
- DTW to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record81.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DCA to DTW and DTW to DCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.