Route reliability record
DCA→MEM
Washington to Memphis
- Flights
- 1,153
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 762 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 1,153 DCA to MEM flights, of which Republic Airways flew 494 at 73.4% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to MEM: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.5%, against 73.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 46 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,098 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.51%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
73.4% on time across 494 flights
These figures cover 1,153 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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 MEM
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point 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 | 5 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 69 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 494 | 73.4% | 70 min | 3.85% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 649 | 72.5% | 64 min | 5.08% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.1% 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 Memphis
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DCA → MEMWashington to Memphis | Republic Airways | 70.6% | 73.4% | 3.85% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 2. DCA → MEMWashington to Memphis | PSA Airlines | 68.8% | 72.5% | 5.08% | 5am–8am, Sun | — |
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 17 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am33 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am317 flights78.5%
- 11am–2pm131 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm331 flights67.6%
- 5pm–8pm28 flights—
- 8pm–5am313 flights68.5%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.8% of the time, against 67.6% for the afternoon window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 331 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
December is the weak month at 63.1% on time, against 82.6% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.5% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 68.1%. 11 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 54% of the 20,000 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 19,696 reported delay minutes.
54% 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 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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.
Cancellations run at 4.51%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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. 10.3% 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 762 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 runs 75.4% on time across 1,152 flights, within 2 points 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 1,153 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 MEM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.51% 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. 1,098 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to MEM questions
How often is DCA to MEM delayed?
About 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 27.0% of the 1,153 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 MEM?
Republic Airways leads at 73.4% on time across 494 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 72.5%, a gap of about a point. 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 MEM?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.6%, 17 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 December delays on DCA to MEM?
December is the weakest month at 63.1% on time, compared with 82.6% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- MEM to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DCA to MEM73.4%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to MEM72.5%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- ATL to MEM, a related route82.3%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record73.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to MEM and MEM to DCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DCA to MEM’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.