Carrier route record

MQDCA→RDU

Envoy Air · Washington to Raleigh

Flights: 448
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 23%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Envoy Air.

Envoy on DCA to RDU sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 448 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 495 at 70.8% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Envoy on DCA to RDU from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 430 completed flights

Avg delay

74 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

4.02%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

69.3%

Every carrier on DCA to RDU, 1,990 flights

These figures cover 448 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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

Envoy against every carrier on DCA to RDU

Envoy flew 448 of the 1,990 flights on DCA to RDU, about 23% of it. Its 74.2% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 74.2% to American at 65.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to RDU
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Air (this page)	448	74.2%	74 min	4.02%	C−
Republic Airways	495	70.8%	70 min	6.46%	C−
PSA Airlines	840	66.8%	64 min	5.12%	C−
American Airlinesthin sample	207	65.2%	74 min	2.90%	C

Republic Airways cancels 6.5% 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.

Departure window

When Envoy 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 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am22 flights—
11am–2pm175 flights89.5%
2pm–5pm168 flights61.0%
5pm–8pm83 flights63.0%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 89.5% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 61.0%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 175 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Envoy on DCA to RDU through the year

Jul–Sep 202536 flights—
Oct–Dec 2025109 flights75.9%
Jan–Mar 2026174 flights73.2%
Apr–Jun 2026129 flights77.0%

Scale runs 65% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 74.2% on time across 448 flights.

Quarter by quarter Envoy on DCA to RDU held fairly steady: 75.9% in Oct–Dec 2025, 73.2% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 77.0% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 4 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.4%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Envoy runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 8,255 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
62%
National Airspace System
21%
Carrier
15%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
1%

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 8,255 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 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 8,255 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 4.02%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.4% 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 227 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.2% on time across 448 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 448 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 Envoy on DCA to RDU

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.02% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 430 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures