Route reliability record
DCA→LAS
Washington to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 729
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,089 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 729 DCA to LAS flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to LAS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.7% of the time and Saturday flights 86.3%, against 69.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 81 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 714 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.51%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
49.4% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 729 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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 LAS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 88.8% | 72 min | 1.37% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 49.4% | 62 min | 1.64% | F |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Las Vegas
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 → LASWashington to Las Vegas | United Airlines | 87.5% | 88.0% | 0.52% | 8am–11am, Wed | UA 1323 09:00 |
| 2. BWI → LASBaltimore to Las Vegas | Southwest Airlines | 77.5% | 78.3% | 0.99% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. DCA → LASWashington to Las Vegas | Southwest Airlines | 48.6% | 49.4% | 1.64% | 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 49 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am240 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am163 flights87.0%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm268 flights45.6%
- 5pm–8pm57 flights41.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 35% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 41.1% on time, against 89.7% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 268 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to LAS 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 LAS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 41.1%, a wide gap of 48.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.7%
- 8–11am87.0%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm45.6%
- 5–8pm41.1%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 35% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
July is the worst month at 56.7% on time, 30 points below March, the best at 86.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 63.7%, a spread of 23 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 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,784 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 13,977 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 89.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.51% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.9% 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.
At 2,089 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.3% on time across 728 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 729 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 LAS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 729 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 69.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 714 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to LAS questions
How often is DCA to LAS 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 30.8% of the 729 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DCA to LAS compared with the rest of the country?
69.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 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 LAS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 41.1%, 49 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 July delays on DCA to LAS?
July is the weakest month at 56.7% on time, compared with 86.9% in March. Across the year that is 30 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
- LAS to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- American Airlines on DCA to LAS88.8%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to LAS49.4%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- LAX to LAS, a related route75.8%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- American Airlines on-time record88.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record49.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. DCA to LAS and LAS 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.