Route reliability record
DCA→LGA
Washington to New York
- Flights
- 4,818
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 214 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,818 flights, with a median arrival 1 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.4%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 104 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,523 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.02%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Republic
67.0% on time across 4,770 flights
These figures cover 4,818 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to LGA
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 Linesthin sample | 24 | 91.7% | 41 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 4,770 | 67.0% | 72 min | 6.06% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 24 | 52.2% | 80 min | 4.17% | F− |
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 37 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am613 flights86.2%
- 8am–11am929 flights80.0%
- 11am–2pm916 flights69.8%
- 2pm–5pm584 flights60.1%
- 5pm–8pm1,161 flights49.5%
- 8pm–5am615 flights60.6%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.5% on time, against 86.2% 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.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 53.1%. August is the strongest month at 82.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 29 points.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 61.2%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 108,000 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.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% 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 51,000 minutes out of 108,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
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 86.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.02%, against 1.80% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 214 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 runs 67.9% on time across 4,816 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,818 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.02% 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.
Common questions
DCA to LGA questions
How often is DCA to LGA delayed?
About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 33.0% of the 4,818 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DCA to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
67.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.4%, a difference of 10 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 LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 49.5%, 37 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 March delays on DCA to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 53.1% on time, compared with 82.2% in August. Across the year that is 29 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
- LGA to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record91.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record67.0%
- American Airlines on-time record52.2%
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DCA to LGA and LGA to DCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.