Carrier route record
AADCA→PBI
American Airlines · Washington to West Palm Beach
- Flights
- 920
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DCA to PBI lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 920 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on DCA to PBI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 897 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
73.9%
Every carrier on DCA to PBI, 1,689 flights
These figures cover 920 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 PBI
American flew 920 of the 1,689 flights on DCA to PBI, most of the route. Its 76.8% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 77.6% to JetBlue at 69.6%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 76 | 77.6% | 36 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 920 | 76.8% | 76 min | 1.85% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 122 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 689 | 69.6% | 75 min | 2.47% | C |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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.
- 5am–8am130 flights95.2%
- 8am–11am288 flights78.2%
- 11am–2pm100 flights66.3%
- 2pm–5pm227 flights75.0%
- 5pm–8pm175 flights69.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 66.3% on time against 95.2% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 288 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DCA to PBI through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 88.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 65.6%, a spread of 19 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DCA to PBI runs when it is late
American on DCA to PBI often beats the schedule: 318 of 897 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 208 late arrivals split 61 under half an hour, 63 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 84 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early318 flights35.5%
- Within 15 min371 flights41.4%
- 15–29 min late61 flights6.8%
- 30–59 min late63 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late52 flights5.8%
- 2+ hours late32 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 897 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
42 of 203 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 47 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 PBI.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DCA to PBI
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 January 2026, 16 hours 50 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 January 2026 | 16 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 September 2025 | 6 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 March 2026 | 5 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 November 2025 | 5 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 July 2026 | 4 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. The split is drawn from 15,739 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 95.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.65%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.4% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.9% on time across 921 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 920 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking American on DCA to PBI
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 920 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 76.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 897 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to PBI, every carrier
- American on PBI to DCA, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on DCA to PBI69.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Palm Beach International (PBI) 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.