Route reliability record
DCA→HSV
Washington to Huntsville
- Flights
- 1,307
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 613 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 1,307 DCA to HSV flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to HSV: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.1% of the time and Monday flights 76.4%, against 71.3% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 60 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,246 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
69.4% on time across 935 flights
These figures cover 1,307 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% 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 HSV
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 | 54 | 84.9% | 34 min | 1.85% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 318 | 74.7% | 79 min | 4.09% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 935 | 69.4% | 80 min | 4.71% | 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.
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–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am344 flights82.1%
- 11am–2pm311 flights71.1%
- 2pm–5pm284 flights65.1%
- 5pm–8pm75 flights59.2%
- 8pm–5am292 flights67.7%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.2% on time, against 82.1% for the 8am–11am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 344 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to HSV 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 HSV, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 82.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.2%, a wide gap of 22.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am82.1%
- 11am–2pm71.1%
- 2–5pm65.1%
- 5–8pm59.2%
- 8pm–5am67.7%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 57.1% on time, against 84.1% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 76.4% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 64.7%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 28,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 28,103 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 82.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.44%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
11.9% 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 613 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 runs 71.3% on time across 1,310 flights, within half a point 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 1,307 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 HSV after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.44% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 1,246 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to HSV questions
How often is DCA to HSV 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 28.7% of the 1,307 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DCA to HSV compared with the rest of the country?
71.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 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 HSV?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.2%, 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 HSV?
December is the weakest month at 57.1% on time, compared with 84.1% in October. Across the year that is 27 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
- HSV to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DCA to HSV74.7%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to HSV69.4%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ATL to HSV, a related route83.7%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record84.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record74.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record69.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to HSV and HSV to DCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DCA to HSV’s on-time badge on your site
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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.