Route reliability record
DCA→ORD
Washington to Chicago
- Flights
- 7,112
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 612 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 7,112 DCA to ORD flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,155 at 75.6% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.3% of the time and Saturday flights 80.0%, against 73.8% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 75.6% on time across 1,155 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,829 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.56%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
75.6% on time across 1,155 flights
These figures cover 7,112 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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 ORD
The three carriers here are closely matched: 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 171 | 80.9% | 81 min | 4.68% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 1,155 | 75.6% | 75 min | 6.06% | B− |
| United Airlines | 3,411 | 73.8% | 87 min | 2.52% | C |
| American Airlines | 2,271 | 72.9% | 89 min | 3.61% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 104 | 60.4% | 93 min | 6.73% | D− |
Republic Airways cancels 6.1% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to ORD
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Chicago
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. IAD → ORDWashington to Chicago | United Airlines | 74.0% | 74.7% | 0.90% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1775 08:20 |
| 2. BWI → ORDBaltimore to Chicago | United Airlines | 73.5% | 74.3% | 1.12% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 590 17:32 |
| 3. DCA → MDWWashington to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 73.4% | 75.5% | 2.76% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. BWI → MDWBaltimore to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 73.3% | 75.1% | 2.38% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | — |
| 5. BWI → ORDBaltimore to Chicago | Envoy Air | 73.1% | 76.0% | 3.80% | 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 30 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,245 flights86.3%
- 8am–11am1,293 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm1,248 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,141 flights70.6%
- 5pm–8pm1,421 flights56.7%
- 8pm–5am764 flights64.3%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.7% on time, against 86.3% 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 1,421 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to ORD 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 ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 56.7%, a wide gap of 29.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.3%
- 8–11am83.3%
- 11am–2pm79.1%
- 2–5pm70.6%
- 5–8pm56.7%
- 8pm–5am64.3%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
August is the worst month at 64.5% on time, 13 points below February, the best at 77.2%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 648 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.0%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 154,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%National Airspace System
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 154,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 154,170 reported delay minutes.
39% 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 60,000 minutes out of 154,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.56%, against 1.89% 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
11.3% 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.
The 612 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.0% on time across 7,104 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 7,112 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 ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.56% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 6,829 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to ORD questions
How often is DCA to ORD 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 26.2% of the 7,112 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to ORD?
Republic Airways leads at 75.6% on time across 1,155 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 72.9%, a gap of 3 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 ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.7%, 30 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 August delays on DCA to ORD?
August is the weakest month at 64.5% on time, compared with 77.2% in February. Across the year that is 13 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
- ORD to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DCA to ORD80.9%
- Republic Airways on DCA to ORD75.6%
- United Airlines on DCA to ORD73.8%
- American Airlines on DCA to ORD72.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on DCA to ORD60.4%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- DCA to ATL, a related route77.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.6%
- United Airlines on-time record73.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to ORD and ORD 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.