Carrier route record
AADCA→ORD
American Airlines · Washington to Chicago
- Flights
- 2,271
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 32%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DCA to ORD 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, about seven flights in ten 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 2,271 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 1,155 at 75.6% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on DCA to ORD runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,177 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
73.8%
Every carrier on DCA to ORD, 7,112 flights
These figures cover 2,271 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DCA to ORD
American flew 2,271 of the 7,112 flights on DCA to ORD, about 32% of it. Its 72.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 80.9% to SkyWest at 60.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 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 (this page) | 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
American flight numbers on DCA to ORD
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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 27 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am357 flights87.4%
- 8am–11am426 flights74.9%
- 11am–2pm457 flights76.6%
- 2pm–5pm505 flights70.5%
- 5pm–8pm176 flights60.2%
- 8pm–5am350 flights60.8%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.2% on time, against 87.4% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 505 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DCA to ORD through the year
August is the worst month at 63.8% on time, 14 points below September, the best at 77.9%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 249 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.4%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DCA to ORD runs when it is late
American on DCA to ORD often beats the schedule: 742 of 2,177 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 589 late arrivals split 170 under half an hour, 153 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 266 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early742 flights34.1%
- Within 15 min846 flights38.9%
- 15–29 min late170 flights7.8%
- 30–59 min late153 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late139 flights6.4%
- 2+ hours late127 flights5.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,177 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
94 of 562 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. In the other direction, 121 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DCA to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 August 2026, 13 hours 9 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 August 2026 | 13 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 February 2026 | 12 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 July 2026 | 12 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 December 2025 | 11 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 June 2026 | 11 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 53,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 52,560 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 87.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.61%, 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 costs
12.2% 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 66.3% on time across 2,268 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,271 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 ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.61% 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. 2,177 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to DCA, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DCA to ORD80.9%
- Republic Airways on DCA to ORD75.6%
- United Airlines on DCA to ORD73.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on DCA to ORD60.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.