Route reliability record

DTW→DCA

Detroit to Washington

Flights: 2,978
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 405 mi
Carriers: 5

This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% 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 2,978 flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 956 at 69.6% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 90 extra late arrivals.

On time

68.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,851 completed flights

Avg delay

81 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.86%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

PSA

69.6% on time across 956 flights

These figures cover 2,978 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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 DTW to DCA

The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on DTW to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	2	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
PSA Airlines	956	69.6%	123 min	6.49%	C−
Delta Air Lines	1,745	68.8%	62 min	2.29%	C
Republic Airwaysthin sample	271	64.2%	69 min	4.80%	D−
American Airlinesthin sample	4	25.0%	207 min	0.00%	F+

PSA Airlines cancels 6.5% 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

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 33 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am673 flights79.3%
8am–11am681 flights83.8%
11am–2pm98 flights78.6%
2pm–5pm542 flights50.7%
5pm–8pm604 flights54.0%
8pm–5am380 flights68.5%

Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 83.8% of the time, against 50.7% for the afternoon window. That is 33 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 681 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 25 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, February worst

February is the weak month at 58.0% on time, against 83.2% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 271 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 63.3%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 73,000 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
36%
Carrier
32%
Late-arriving aircraft
28%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

36% 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 26,000 minutes out of 73,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 72,827 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 3.86%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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. 11.5% 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 405 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.6% on time across 2,979 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,978 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.

What to do with this

Booking this route

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.86% 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. 2,851 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

DTW to DCA questions

How often is DTW to DCA delayed?

About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 31.4% of the 2,978 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on DTW to DCA?

PSA Airlines leads at 69.6% on time across 956 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 68.8%, a gap of about a point. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to DCA?

The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 50.7%, 33 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 February delays on DTW to DCA?

February is the weakest month at 58.0% on time, compared with 83.2% in September. Across the year that is 25 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. DTW to DCA and DCA to DTW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures