Carrier route record

AADCA→LAS

American Airlines · Washington to Las Vegas

Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 50%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on DCA to LAS earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 12 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's DCA to LAS record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 118 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

89.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights

Avg delay

65 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.37%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

71.4%

Every carrier on DCA to LAS, 730 flights

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on DCA to LAS

American flew 365 of the 730 flights on DCA to LAS, most of the route. Its 89.4% on time is 18 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 89.4% to Southwest at 53.4%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to LAS
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)	365	89.4%	65 min	1.37%	A
Southwest Airlines	365	53.4%	60 min	1.10%	F

Departure window

When American runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 365 flights.

5am–8am200 flights90.3%
8am–11am165 flights88.5%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 80% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5am–8am window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The full set of windows spans 2 points.

Across the year

American on DCA to LAS through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, August worst

August is the worst month at 77.4% on time, 19 points below April, the best at 96.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.

Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 94.1% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 84.3%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 2,486 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.

Carrier
47%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
National Airspace System
21%

The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,161 of the 2,486 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,486 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 90.3% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.3% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

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 79.2% on time across 365 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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.

What to do with this

Booking American on DCA to LAS

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 365 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 89.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 360 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures