Route reliability record
DCA→PBI
Washington to West Palm Beach
- Flights
- 1,796
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 857 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,796 DCA to PBI flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,008 at 77.2% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to PBI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.7%, against 73.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,759 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.67%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
77.2% on time across 1,008 flights
These figures cover 1,796 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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 PBI
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 77.2% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 68.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 733 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 100.0% | — | 20.00% | A− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 50 | 80.0% | 38 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,008 | 77.2% | 72 min | 1.79% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 733 | 68.9% | 79 min | 1.50% | C |
American leads JetBlue by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to PBI
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to West Palm Beach
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → FLLWashington to Fort Lauderdale | United Airlines | 83.9% | 84.4% | 0.56% | 8am–11am, Tue (route) | UA 1825 08:15 |
| 2. BWI → PBIBaltimore to West Palm Beach | Southwest Airlines | 76.7% | 77.7% | 1.30% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. DCA → PBIWashington to West Palm Beach | American Airlines | 75.8% | 77.2% | 1.79% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. BWI → FLLBaltimore to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 75.4% | 78.5% | 3.90% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. BWI → FLLBaltimore to Fort Lauderdale | Southwest Airlines | 74.8% | 75.9% | 1.51% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 23 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am389 flights87.8%
- 8am–11am469 flights77.5%
- 11am–2pm174 flights71.8%
- 2pm–5pm394 flights65.2%
- 5pm–8pm370 flights65.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.8% of the time, against 65.0% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 469 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
February is the weak month at 66.9% on time, against 83.8% in May. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 211 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.6%. 16 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 50% 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% 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 25 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 34,281 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 87.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.67% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.39%.
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. 10.1% 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 857 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 69.8% on time across 1,797 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,796 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 PBI after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 83.8% on time and February 66.9%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of February before you think about anything else. 1,759 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to PBI questions
How often is DCA to PBI 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 26.1% of the 1,796 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to PBI?
American Airlines leads at 77.2% on time across 1,008 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 68.9%, a gap of 8 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 PBI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.0%, 23 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 February delays on DCA to PBI?
February is the weakest month at 66.9% on time, compared with 83.8% in May. Across the year that is 17 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
- PBI to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on DCA to PBI77.2%
- JetBlue Airways on DCA to PBI68.9%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- ATL to PBI, a related route75.7%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.0%
- American Airlines on-time record77.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DCA to PBI and PBI 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.