Route reliability record
DCA→JAX
Washington to Jacksonville
- Flights
- 1,463
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 634 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route 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 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,463 DCA to JAX flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to JAX: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Saturday flights 81.6%, against 72.9% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 47 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,423 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
70.7% on time across 1,003 flights
These figures cover 1,463 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 JAX
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 | 124 | 89.2% | 52 min | 1.61% | A |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 34 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 332 | 73.4% | 76 min | 3.61% | C− |
| American Airlines | 1,003 | 70.7% | 72 min | 2.19% | C |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Jacksonville
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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → JAXWashington to Jacksonville | United Airlines | 85.6% | 86.2% | 0.68% | 8am–11am, Wed | UA 2084 08:45 |
| 2. BWI → JAXBaltimore to Jacksonville | Southwest Airlines | 74.7% | 75.7% | 1.28% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. DCA → JAXWashington to Jacksonville | American Airlines | 69.2% | 70.7% | 2.19% | 5am–8am, 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 40 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–8am327 flights86.5%
- 8am–11am70 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm387 flights70.6%
- 2pm–5pm334 flights67.9%
- 5pm–8pm36 flights51.4%
- 8pm–5am309 flights64.7%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.4% on time, against 90.9% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 387 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 89.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 146 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.3%. 19 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 60% of the 28,000 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.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
60% 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 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 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 27,753 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 90.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.46% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
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. 10.7% 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 634 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 runs 71.7% on time across 1,464 flights, within about 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 1,463 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 JAX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 89.7% on time and March 61.2%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,423 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to JAX questions
How often is DCA to JAX delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.1% of the 1,463 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DCA to JAX compared with the rest of the country?
72.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 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 JAX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 51.4%, 40 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 March delays on DCA to JAX?
March is the weakest month at 61.2% on time, compared with 89.7% in April. Across the year that is 29 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
- JAX to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DCA to JAX89.2%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to JAX73.4%
- American Airlines on DCA to JAX70.7%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- ATL to JAX, a related route75.5%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record89.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record75.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record73.4%
- 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 JAX and JAX 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.