Route reliability record
DCA→SYR
Washington to Syracuse
- Flights
- 1,029
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 298 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 1,029 DCA to SYR flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to SYR: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 80.7% of the time and Saturday flights 76.6%, against 68.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 96 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 972 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.34%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
67.8% on time across 541 flights
These figures cover 1,029 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% 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 SYR
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 221 | 72.1% | 76 min | 2.71% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 178 | 69.5% | 59 min | 6.18% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 541 | 67.8% | 69 min | 5.55% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 89 | 55.6% | 96 min | 8.99% | D− |
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 24 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–8am—
- 8am–11am323 flights80.7%
- 11am–2pm42 flights74.4%
- 2pm–5pm314 flights57.7%
- 5pm–8pm41 flights56.8%
- 8pm–5am309 flights65.2%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.8% on time, against 80.7% for the 8am–11am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 323 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
July is the worst month at 53.3% on time, 24 points below May, the best at 77.5%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 76.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 61.6%. 15 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 66% of the 22,000 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.
- 66%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
66% 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 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 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 22,291 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 80.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.34%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.9% 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 298 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 67.7% on time across 1,029 flights, within half 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. 1,029 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 SYR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.34% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 972 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to SYR questions
How often is DCA to SYR 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 32.0% of the 1,029 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 SYR compared with the rest of the country?
68.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 SYR?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 80.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.8%, 24 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 July delays on DCA to SYR?
July is the weakest month at 53.3% on time, compared with 77.5% in May. Across the year that is 24 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
- SYR to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on DCA to SYR72.1%
- Republic Airways on DCA to SYR69.5%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to SYR67.8%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- ORD to SYR, a related route74.7%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- American Airlines on-time record72.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record69.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record67.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to SYR and SYR 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.