Route reliability record
DCA→SFO
Washington to San Francisco
- Flights
- 1,093
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,442 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,093 DCA to SFO flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to SFO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.7% of the time and Saturday flights 82.2%, against 74.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,077 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.19%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
76.9% on time across 729 flights
These figures cover 1,093 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to SFO
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 729 | 76.9% | 70 min | 1.23% | B |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 68.1% | 67 min | 1.10% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to SFO
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to San Francisco
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → SFOWashington to San Francisco | United Airlines | 77.9% | 78.6% | 0.89% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | UA 1095 06:30 |
| 2. BWI → SFOBaltimore to San Francisco | United Airlines | 77.7% | 78.3% | 0.83% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 3. DCA → SFOWashington to San Francisco | United Airlines | 76.0% | 76.9% | 1.23% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 369 07:00 |
| 4. BWI → SFOBaltimore to San Francisco | Southwest Airlines | 56.7% | 57.2% | 0.82% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 23 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–8am323 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am41 flights85.4%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm729 flights66.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.7% of the time, against 66.3% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 729 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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.
June is the worst month at 52.9% on time, 34 points below January, the best at 86.4%. 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 66.2%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 51% of the 19,000 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.
- 51%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 9,839 minutes out of 19,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 19,176 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 89.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.19% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.7% 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 2,442 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.9% on time across 1,093 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,093 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 SFO after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,093 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 74.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,077 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to SFO questions
How often is DCA to SFO delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.0% of the 1,093 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DCA to SFO compared with the rest of the country?
74.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 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 SFO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.3%, 23 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 June delays on DCA to SFO?
June is the weakest month at 52.9% on time, compared with 86.4% in January. Across the year that is 34 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
- SFO to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- United Airlines on DCA to SFO76.9%
- Alaska Airlines on DCA to SFO68.1%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- LAX to SFO, a related route64.8%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- United Airlines on-time record76.9%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record68.1%
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DCA to SFO and SFO 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.