Route reliability record
DCA→MCI
Washington to Kansas City
- Flights
- 1,927
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 949 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,927 DCA to MCI flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 999 at 72.7% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to MCI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.6%, against 71.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 59 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,858 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.17%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
72.7% on time across 999 flights
These figures cover 1,927 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 MCI
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 25 | 84.0% | 42 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 152 | 75.5% | 44 min | 0.66% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 999 | 72.7% | 65 min | 1.80% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 168 | 71.6% | 64 min | 3.57% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 583 | 68.2% | 69 min | 6.17% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.2% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Kansas City
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. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BWI → MCIBaltimore to Kansas City | Southwest Airlines | 75.1% | 76.0% | 1.13% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. DCA → MCIWashington to Kansas City | Southwest Airlines | 71.4% | 72.7% | 1.80% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. DCA → MCIWashington to Kansas City | PSA Airlines | 64.0% | 68.2% | 6.17% | 5am–8am, 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 32 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am421 flights91.2%
- 8am–11am186 flights75.3%
- 11am–2pm471 flights72.8%
- 2pm–5pm292 flights60.6%
- 5pm–8pm153 flights59.6%
- 8pm–5am404 flights60.7%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.6% on time, against 91.2% 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. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 471 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 83.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 166 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 64.1%. 15 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 34,000 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.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 33,881 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 91.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.17%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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. 10.4% 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.
The 949 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.8% on time across 1,926 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,927 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 MCI after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.17% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 1,858 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to MCI questions
How often is DCA to MCI delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.3% of the 1,927 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to MCI?
Southwest Airlines leads at 72.7% on time across 999 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 68.2%, a gap of 5 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to MCI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.6%, 32 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 MCI?
March is the weakest month at 59.4% on time, compared with 83.5% in September. Across the year that is 24 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
- MCI to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DCA to MCI75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to MCI72.7%
- Envoy Air on DCA to MCI71.6%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to MCI68.2%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- DEN to MCI, a related route75.5%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- American Airlines on-time record84.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to MCI and MCI 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.