Carrier route record
DLDCA→LAX
Delta Air Lines · Washington to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 362
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DCA to LAX lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on DCA to LAX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 353 completed flights
Avg delay
116 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.6%
Every carrier on DCA to LAX, 1,454 flights
These figures cover 362 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on DCA to LAX
Delta flew 362 of the 1,454 flights on DCA to LAX, about 25% of it. Its 77.3% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 77.3% to Alaska at 70.5%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page)thin sample | 362 | 77.3% | 116 min | 2.49% | B |
| American Airlines | 728 | 77.3% | 74 min | 1.24% | B |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 70.5% | 55 min | 1.65% | C |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Delta 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 362 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm238 flights78.3%
- 5pm–8pm124 flights75.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 2pm–5pm window is the strongest at 78.3% on time. The full set of windows spans 3 points.
Across the year
Delta on DCA to LAX through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights60.0%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights79.8%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights84.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights77.9%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights71.7%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 77.3% on time across 362 flights.
Delta on DCA to LAX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 84.1% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 60.0%, a swing of 24 points on roughly 72 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.9%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on DCA to LAX runs when it is late
Delta on DCA to LAX often beats the schedule: 106 of 353 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 80 late arrivals split 22 under half an hour, 24 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 34 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early106 flights30.0%
- Within 15 min167 flights47.3%
- 15–29 min late22 flights6.2%
- 30–59 min late24 flights6.8%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights4.0%
- 2+ hours late20 flights5.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 353 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 75 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 23 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 28 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at LAX.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on DCA to LAX
The latest arrival of the period was on 11 February 2026, 17 hours 45 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 11 February 2026 | 17 hours 45 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 June 2026 | 12 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 April 2026 | 8 hours 47 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 June 2026 | 7 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 24 December 2025 | 6 hours 39 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 50% of the 9,311 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,663 of the 9,311 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,311 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.49% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.6% 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 2,311 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 80.4% on time across 362 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 362 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 Delta on DCA to LAX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 362 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 77.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 353 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to LAX, every carrier
- Delta on LAX to DCA, the return leg
- American Airlines on DCA to LAX77.3%
- Alaska Airlines on DCA to LAX70.5%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.