Carrier route record
AADCA→MIA
American Airlines · Washington to Miami
- Flights
- 3,546
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 90%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DCA to MIA lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,546 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on DCA to MIA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,454 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.28%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.2%
Every carrier on DCA to MIA, 3,959 flights
These figures cover 3,546 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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
American against every carrier on DCA to MIA
American flew 3,546 of the 3,959 flights on DCA to MIA, most of the route. Its 77.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to Republic at 54.2%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 3,546 | 77.4% | 84 min | 2.28% | B |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 364 | 67.2% | 82 min | 1.92% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 48 | 54.2% | 85 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 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–8am1,038 flights91.8%
- 8am–11am601 flights82.6%
- 11am–2pm500 flights72.1%
- 2pm–5pm337 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm718 flights63.3%
- 8pm–5am352 flights66.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.3% on time, against 91.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,038 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DCA to MIA through the year
July is the worst month at 67.0% on time, 16 points below February, the best at 83.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. May was the busiest month here, with 310 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.7%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 66,000 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
- 26%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 66,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 65,518 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 91.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.28% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.0% 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 919 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 74.8% on time across 3,549 flights, within 3 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 3,546 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 American on DCA to MIA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 83.3% on time and July 67.0%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,454 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to MIA, every carrier
- American on MIA to DCA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DCA to MIA67.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.