Carrier route record
AADCA→FLL
American Airlines · Washington to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 575
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DCA to FLL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 575 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, JetBlue Airways, flew 1,380 at 68.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on DCA to FLL runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 52 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 563 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.91%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
67.7%
Every carrier on DCA to FLL, 2,320 flights
These figures cover 575 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DCA to FLL
American flew 575 of the 2,320 flights on DCA to FLL, about 25% of it. Its 72.1% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 67.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 72.1% to Southwest at 59.5%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. JetBlue Airways arrives on time 68.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 59.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 365 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 575 | 72.1% | 67 min | 1.91% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,380 | 68.1% | 80 min | 3.48% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 59.5% | 64 min | 1.64% | D |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.5% 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.
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.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am4 flights—
- 8am–11am360 flights76.4%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm193 flights63.5%
- 5pm–8pm18 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 76.4% of the time, against 63.5% for the afternoon window. That is 13 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 360 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DCA to FLL through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 71 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 78.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.8%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DCA to FLL runs when it is late
American on DCA to FLL often beats the schedule: 197 of 563 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 157 late arrivals split 54 under half an hour, 49 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 54 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early197 flights35.0%
- Within 15 min209 flights37.1%
- 15–29 min late54 flights9.6%
- 30–59 min late49 flights8.7%
- 1–2 hours late33 flights5.9%
- 2+ hours late21 flights3.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 563 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
25 of 144 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. In the other direction, 38 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at FLL.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DCA to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 April 2026, 7 hours 11 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across April, March, May, November and October, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 April 2026 | 7 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 13 March 2026 | 4 hours 32 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 13 May 2026 | 4 hours 28 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 8 November 2025 | 4 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 October 2025 | 4 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 52 to one. The split is drawn from 10,438 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 76.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.91% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.6% 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.
The 899 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 65.8% on time across 575 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 575 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 American on DCA to FLL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 575 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 72.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 563 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to FLL, every carrier
- American on FLL to DCA, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on DCA to FLL68.1%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to FLL59.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.