Carrier route record
AADCA→PWM
American Airlines · Washington to Portland
- Flights
- 655
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 57%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DCA to PWM sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 655 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on DCA to PWM runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 77 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 638 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.8%
Every carrier on DCA to PWM, 1,153 flights
These figures cover 655 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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
American against every carrier on DCA to PWM
American flew 655 of the 1,153 flights on DCA to PWM, most of the route. Its 69.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 68.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to PSA at 66.7%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 655 | 69.9% | 69 min | 2.29% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 100 | 68.2% | 63 min | 12.00% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 394 | 66.7% | 63 min | 4.57% | C− |
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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am241 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm10 flights—
- 2pm–5pm188 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm4 flights—
- 8pm–5am212 flights63.1%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.1% on time, against 75.8% 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 241 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DCA to PWM through the year
February is the weak month at 52.9% on time, against 82.9% in November. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.0%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 13,000 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.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
62% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 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 13,300 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 75.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.29% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.0% 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.
At 482 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.1% on time across 655 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. 655 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 PWM
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 655 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 69.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 638 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to PWM, every carrier
- American on PWM to DCA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on DCA to PWM68.2%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to PWM66.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.