Carrier route record

ASDCA→SFO

Alaska Airlines · Washington to San Francisco

Flights: 364
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 33%
Carriers: 2

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

Alaska on DCA to SFO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 10 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Alaska on DCA to SFO runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 95 extra late arrivals.

On time

68.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 357 completed flights

Avg delay

67 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.0%

Every carrier on DCA to SFO, 1,093 flights

These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.2% 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

Alaska against every carrier on DCA to SFO

Alaska flew 364 of the 1,093 flights on DCA to SFO, about 33% of it. Its 68.1% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 76.9% to Alaska at 68.1%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to SFO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	729	76.9%	70 min	1.23%	B
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	364	68.1%	67 min	1.10%	C

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on DCA to SFO

AS 718:5968.1% · 364 flights

Departure window

When Alaska runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 364 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Alaska's DCA to SFO record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 68.1% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

Alaska on DCA to SFO through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights71.4%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights73.6%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights70.5%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights56.3%

Scale runs 50% 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 68.1% on time across 364 flights.

Alaska on DCA to SFO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 73.6% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 56.3%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 91 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 59.6%. 24 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 7,635 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
47%
National Airspace System
32%
Carrier
15%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

47% 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 7,635 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 7,635 reported delay minutes.

32% 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 2,478 minutes out of 7,635, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.

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. 13.2% 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 77.6% on time across 364 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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 Alaska on DCA to SFO

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 364 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 68.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 357 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