Route reliability record
DCA→GRR
Washington to Grand Rapids
- Flights
- 731
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 524 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 731 DCA to GRR flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 124 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 684 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.75%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
65.0% on time across 720 flights
These figures cover 731 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.7% 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 GRR
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 | 9 | 85.7% | 16 min | 22.22% | A− |
| PSA Airlines | 720 | 65.0% | 84 min | 5.56% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 51 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to GRR
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am16 flights—
- 11am–2pm335 flights70.6%
- 2pm–5pm26 flights—
- 5pm–8pm25 flights—
- 8pm–5am329 flights56.1%
Scale runs 50% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.1% on time, against 70.6% for the 11am–2pm 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 335 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 38 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.
December is the weak month at 40.0% on time, against 78.0% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 84 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 59.4%. 18 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 61% of the 20,000 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.
- 61%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
61% 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 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 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 19,794 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.75%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 16.7% 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.
The 524 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 68.5% on time across 730 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 731 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 GRR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.75% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 684 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to GRR questions
How often is DCA to GRR 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 34.8% of the 731 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DCA to GRR compared with the rest of the country?
65.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 GRR?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 70.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.1%, 14 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 December delays on DCA to GRR?
December is the weakest month at 40.0% on time, compared with 78.0% in September. Across the year that is 38 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
- GRR to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- ORD to GRR, a related route70.0%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record85.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record65.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record50.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to GRR and GRR 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.