Route reliability record
DFW→DCA
Dallas-Fort Worth to Washington
- Flights
- 3,303
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,192 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,303 DFW to DCA flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.0%, against 73.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,196 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.76%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
73.6% on time across 3,303 flights
These figures cover 3,303 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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 DFW to DCA
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 Airlines | 3,303 | 73.6% | 61 min | 2.76% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW to DCA
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth to Washington
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → IADDallas-Fort Worth to Washington | United Airlines | 82.9% | 83.6% | 0.86% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2639 07:25 |
| 2. DAL → BWIDallas to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 72.4% | 73.8% | 1.86% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. DFW → DCADallas-Fort Worth to Washington | American Airlines | 71.6% | 73.6% | 2.76% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1177 09:23 |
| 4. DFW → IADDallas-Fort Worth to Washington | American Airlines | 69.0% | 70.7% | 2.47% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. DFW → BWIDallas-Fort Worth to Baltimore | American Airlines | 66.3% | 68.2% | 2.79% | 8am–11am, Tue | AA 2251 19:37 |
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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am723 flights85.6%
- 8am–11am635 flights81.5%
- 11am–2pm455 flights70.7%
- 2pm–5pm560 flights65.4%
- 5pm–8pm722 flights64.4%
- 8pm–5am208 flights67.0%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.4% on time, against 85.6% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 723 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to DCA 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 DFW to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.4%, a wide gap of 21.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.6%
- 8–11am81.5%
- 11am–2pm70.7%
- 2–5pm65.4%
- 5–8pm64.4%
- 8pm–5am67.0%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 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.
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 67.2%. August is the strongest month at 81.1%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 14 points. May was the busiest month here, with 297 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.7%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 52,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 52,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 51,679 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 85.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.76%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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
8.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,192 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 78.8% on time across 3,304 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.
The sample behind these figures is 3,303 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 DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 81.1% on time and November 67.2%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of November before you think about anything else. 3,196 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to DCA questions
How often is DFW to DCA 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 26.4% of the 3,303 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DFW to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
73.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 DFW to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.4%, 21 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 November delays on DFW to DCA?
November is the weakest month at 67.2% on time, compared with 81.1% in August. Across the year that is 14 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
- DCA to DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- American Airlines on-time record73.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to DCA and DCA to DFW 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.