Route reliability record
DCA→PNS
Washington to Pensacola
- Flights
- 1,074
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 816 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 1,074 DCA to PNS flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly DCA to PNS: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 75.6% of the time and Monday flights 71.1%, against 65.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 116 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,017 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
64.5% on time across 942 flights
These figures cover 1,074 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to PNS
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 | 63 | 80.0% | 38 min | 4.76% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 69 | 68.3% | 59 min | 5.80% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 942 | 64.5% | 85 min | 4.25% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to PNS
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.
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
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am356 flights75.6%
- 11am–2pm82 flights64.0%
- 2pm–5pm280 flights65.7%
- 5pm–8pm289 flights55.4%
- 8pm–5am67 flights57.1%
Scale runs 45% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.4% on time, against 75.6% for the 8am–11am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 356 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to PNS 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 PNS, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 75.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 55.4%, a wide gap of 20.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am75.6%
- 11am–2pm64.0%
- 2–5pm65.7%
- 5–8pm55.4%
- 8pm–5am57.1%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 50.6% on time, 28 points below September, the best at 78.7%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 71.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 60.8%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 6%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. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 28,601 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 75.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.38%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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
14.6% 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 816 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 71.2% on time across 1,072 flights, 6 points above 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,074 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PNS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.38% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,017 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to PNS questions
How often is DCA to PNS delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 34.3% of the 1,074 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DCA to PNS compared with the rest of the country?
65.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 12 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to PNS?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 75.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.4%, 20 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 PNS?
August is the weakest month at 50.6% on time, compared with 78.7% in September. Across the year that is 28 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
- PNS to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ATL to PNS, a related route82.1%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record68.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record64.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to PNS and PNS to DCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DCA to PNS’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.