Route reliability record
DCA→LGA
Washington to New York
- Flights
- 4,843
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 214 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 4,843 DCA to LGA flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Best time to fly DCA to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.9% of the time and Saturday flights 80.8%, against 65.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 117 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,525 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
65.1% on time across 4,703 flights
These figures cover 4,843 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.6% 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 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 | 116 | 89.3% | 131 min | 3.45% | A− |
| Republic Airways | 4,703 | 65.1% | 78 min | 6.53% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 24 | 52.2% | 80 min | 4.17% | F− |
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to LGA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to New York
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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DCA → JFKWashington to New York | JetBlue Airways | 76.4% | 81.3% | 6.07% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. BWI → ISPBaltimore to Islip | Southwest Airlines | 76.3% | 77.8% | 1.90% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. IAD → EWRWashington to Newark | United Airlines | 75.1% | 77.1% | 2.61% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | UA 2669 06:00 |
| 4. DCA → JFKWashington to New York | Republic Airways | 71.5% | 76.0% | 5.98% | 5am–8am, Wed | YX 5713 17:00 |
| 5. IAD → LGAWashington to New York | Republic Airways | 68.0% | 73.1% | 6.92% | 8am–11am, 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 38 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am626 flights85.9%
- 8am–11am870 flights78.5%
- 11am–2pm872 flights69.4%
- 2pm–5pm624 flights60.4%
- 5pm–8pm1,244 flights48.1%
- 8pm–5am607 flights58.7%
Scale runs 40% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.1% on time, against 85.9% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,244 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to LGA 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 LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 48.1%, a wide gap of 37.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.9%
- 8–11am78.5%
- 11am–2pm69.4%
- 2–5pm60.4%
- 5–8pm48.1%
- 8pm–5am58.7%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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%. January is the strongest month at 78.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 25 points. March was the busiest month here, with 436 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 58.3%, a spread of 23 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 45% of the 122,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% 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 55,000 minutes out of 122,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 121,750 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 85.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.44%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
14.6% 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 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 65.5% on time across 4,840 flights, within half 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 4,843 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.44% 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. 4,525 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to LGA questions
How often is DCA to LGA delayed?
About 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 34.4% of the 4,843 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
65.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 12 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 85.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 48.1%, 38 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 78.4% in January. Across the year that is 25 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 DCA to LGA89.3%
- Republic Airways on DCA to LGA65.1%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record65.1%
- American Airlines on-time record52.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.
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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.