Carrier route record

ASDCA→LAX

Alaska Airlines · Washington to Los Angeles

Flights: 364
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 25%
Carriers: 3

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

Alaska on DCA to LAX draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Alaska on DCA to LAX runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 111 extra late arrivals.

On time

66.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights

Avg delay

59 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.2%

Every carrier on DCA to LAX, 1,457 flights

These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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

Alaska against every carrier on DCA to LAX

Alaska flew 364 of the 1,457 flights on DCA to LAX, about 25% of it. Its 66.5% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 77.8% to Alaska at 66.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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 LAX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines	730	77.8%	72 min	1.23%	B
Delta Air Linesthin sample	363	74.9%	120 min	2.20%	C
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	364	66.5%	59 min	1.10%	C

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on DCA to LAX

AS 509:5966.5% · 364 flights

Departure window

When Alaska 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 364 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Alaska's DCA to LAX record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 66.5% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

Alaska on DCA to LAX through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.March best, July worst

July is the worst month at 48.4% on time, 39 points below March, the best at 87.1%. 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 72.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 60.8%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 42% of the 7,064 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.

National Airspace System
42%
Carrier
30%
Late-arriving aircraft
22%
Extreme weather
5%

42% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,995 minutes out of 7,064, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,064 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% 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.

At 2,311 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 75.5% on time across 364 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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 Alaska on DCA to LAX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 364 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 66.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 358 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