Route reliability record
DCA→HPN
Washington to White Plains
- Flights
- 1,354
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 234 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 7.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, a little over half of flights arrive on time, worth a D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,354 DCA to HPN flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
Best time to fly DCA to HPN: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 74.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 67.9%, against 61.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 16 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 157 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
61.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,248 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.31%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
61.6% on time across 1,354 flights
These figures cover 1,354 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.7% 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 HPN
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 1,354 | 61.6% | 89 min | 7.31% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to HPN
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.
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 White Plains
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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DCA → JFKWashington to New York | JetBlue Airways | 76.4% | 81.3% | 6.07% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. BWI → ISPBaltimore to Islip | Southwest Airlines | 76.3% | 77.8% | 1.90% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. IAD → EWRWashington to Newark | United Airlines | 75.1% | 77.1% | 2.61% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | UA 2669 06:00 |
| 4. DCA → JFKWashington to New York | Republic Airways | 71.5% | 76.0% | 5.98% | 5am–8am, Wed | YX 5713 17:00 |
| 5. IAD → LGAWashington to New York | Republic Airways | 68.0% | 73.1% | 6.92% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am352 flights74.4%
- 11am–2pm340 flights56.7%
- 2pm–5pm67 flights51.6%
- 5pm–8pm455 flights56.8%
- 8pm–5am140 flights61.4%
Scale runs 45% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 74.4% of the time, against 51.6% for the afternoon window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 455 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to HPN 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 HPN, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 74.4% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 51.6%, a wide gap of 22.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am74.4%
- 11am–2pm56.7%
- 2–5pm51.6%
- 5–8pm56.8%
- 8pm–5am61.4%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 36 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 40.6% on time, against 76.3% in October. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 67.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 55.6%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 42,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 42,485 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 74.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 7.31%, against 1.89% 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
16.7% 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 234 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 59.6% on time across 1,351 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 1,354 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 HPN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.31% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,248 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to HPN questions
How often is DCA to HPN delayed?
Roughly 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 38.4% of the 1,354 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DCA to HPN compared with the rest of the country?
61.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 16 points against it. That is worth a D− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to HPN?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 74.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 51.6%, 23 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 HPN?
December is the weakest month at 40.6% on time, compared with 76.3% in October. Across the year that is 36 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
- HPN to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- PBI to HPN, a related route72.7%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- PSA Airlines on-time record61.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to HPN and HPN 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.