Route reliability record
DCA→SAV
Washington to Savannah
- Flights
- 1,104
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 519 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.8% 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 1,104 DCA to SAV flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to SAV: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.2% of the time and Saturday flights 77.6%, against 67.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 95 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,047 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.80%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
66.5% on time across 969 flights
These figures cover 1,104 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to SAV
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 | 96 | 80.2% | 53 min | 3.12% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 33 | 72.7% | 66 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| PSA Airlines | 969 | 66.5% | 94 min | 5.16% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 50.0% | 31 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Savannah
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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BWI → SAVBaltimore to Savannah | Southwest Airlines | 79.5% | 80.3% | 1.01% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. DCA → SAVWashington to Savannah | PSA Airlines | 63.1% | 66.5% | 5.16% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | — |
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 61 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am89 flights95.2%
- 8am–11am277 flights82.4%
- 11am–2pm218 flights73.7%
- 2pm–5pm54 flights72.2%
- 5pm–8pm378 flights53.2%
- 8pm–5am88 flights33.8%
Scale runs 25% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 33.8% on time, against 95.2% for the 5am–8am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 378 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to SAV 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 SAV, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 33.8%, a wide gap of 61.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.2%
- 8–11am82.4%
- 11am–2pm73.7%
- 2–5pm72.2%
- 5–8pm53.2%
- 8pm–5am33.8%
best all US flightsScale 25% to 100%.
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 48.7% on time, 28 points below May, the best at 76.2%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 103 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 59.2%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 30,595 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 run at 4.80%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
16.7% 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 519 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 78.1% on time across 1,105 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,104 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 SAV after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.80% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,047 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to SAV questions
How often is DCA to SAV 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 32.2% of the 1,104 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 SAV compared with the rest of the country?
67.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 10 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 SAV?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 33.8%, 61 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 SAV?
August is the weakest month at 48.7% on time, compared with 76.2% in May. 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
- SAV to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ATL to SAV, a related route82.1%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record72.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record66.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to SAV and SAV 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.