Carrier route record

AADCA→STL

American Airlines · Washington to St. Louis

Flights: 175
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 7%
Carriers: 5

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

American on DCA to STL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 175 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 1,403 at 75.7% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on DCA to STL runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 92 extra late arrivals.

On time

68.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 171 completed flights

Avg delay

95 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.29%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

73.6%

Every carrier on DCA to STL, 2,414 flights

These figures cover 175 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.0% 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 STL

American flew 175 of the 2,414 flights on DCA to STL, about 7% of it. Its 68.4% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 73.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 90.5% to PSA at 67.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 75.7% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 67.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 615 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to STL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	21	90.5%	39 min	0.00%	A+
Republic Airwaysthin sample	200	79.8%	61 min	3.50%	B−
Southwest Airlines	1,403	75.7%	66 min	1.21%	B
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	175	68.4%	95 min	2.29%	C
PSA Airlines	615	67.4%	82 min	4.88%	C−

PSA Airlines cancels 4.9% 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 American 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 175 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm123 flights66.7%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am52 flights72.5%

Scale runs 60% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 72.5% on time. The full set of windows spans 6 points.

Across the year

American on DCA to STL through the year

Jul–Sep 2025139 flights67.4%
Oct–Dec 202531 flights71.0%
Jan–Mar 20265 flights—

Scale runs 60% to 75%. 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 68.4% on time across 175 flights.

Split by quarter, American on DCA to STL logged 139 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 31 flights in Oct–Dec 2025 and 5 flights in Jan–Mar 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 68.4% annual figure is the one to use.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 5,116 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
57%
Carrier
23%
National Airspace System
10%
Extreme weather
10%
Security
0%

57% 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 5,116 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 5,116 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 2.29% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

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. 14.0% 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.

The 719 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 67.5% on time across 175 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 175 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 STL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 175 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 68.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 171 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