Route reliability record
DCA→JFK
Washington to New York
- Flights
- 2,486
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 213 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,486 DCA to JFK flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 445 at 81.3% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.9%, against 77.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,336 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
81.3% on time across 445 flights
These figures cover 2,486 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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 JFK
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 445 | 81.3% | 85 min | 6.07% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 2,041 | 76.0% | 71 min | 5.98% | B− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 6.1% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to JFK
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to New York
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. 3 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 29 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am966 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm552 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm173 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm767 flights61.7%
- 8pm–5am28 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.7% on time, against 90.9% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 966 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to JFK 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 JFK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.7%, a wide gap of 29.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.9%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm77.1%
- 2–5pm66.7%
- 5–8pm61.7%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 68.1% on time, against 87.1% in May. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 262 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.0%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 39,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 39,325 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am 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 run at 5.99%, 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
9.0% 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 213 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 66.2% on time across 2,518 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,486 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 JFK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.99% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,336 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to JFK questions
How often is DCA to JFK delayed?
Roughly 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 23.0% of the 2,486 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to JFK?
JetBlue Airways leads at 81.3% on time across 445 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 76.0%, a gap of 5 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.7%, 29 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 JFK?
December is the weakest month at 68.1% on time, compared with 87.1% in May. Across the year that is 19 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
- JFK to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on DCA to JFK81.3%
- Republic Airways on DCA to JFK76.0%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record81.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to JFK and JFK 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.