Carrier route record
DLDTW→DCA
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Washington
- Flights
- 1,745
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 59%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DTW to DCA 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,745 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Delta on DTW to DCA runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 88 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,698 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.6%
Every carrier on DTW to DCA, 2,978 flights
These figures cover 1,745 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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
Delta against every carrier on DTW to DCA
Delta flew 1,745 of the 2,978 flights on DTW to DCA, most of the route. Its 68.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 68.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to American at 25.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 956 | 69.6% | 123 min | 6.49% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 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+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on DTW to DCA
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 41 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–8am361 flights79.3%
- 8am–11am361 flights88.7%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm362 flights48.2%
- 5pm–8pm301 flights58.0%
- 8pm–5am360 flights68.3%
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.7% of the time, against 48.2% for the afternoon window. That is 41 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 362 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DTW to DCA through the year
January is the weak month at 54.8% on time, against 85.3% in October. 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 151 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 63.9%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 54% of the 33,000 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.
- 54%National Airspace System
- 31%Carrier
- 11%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
54% 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 18,000 minutes out of 33,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 32,575 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.29% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.40%.
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. 9.5% 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 79.6% on time across 1,745 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,745 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 Delta on DTW to DCA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 85.3% on time and January 54.8%, a swing of 31 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,698 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to DCA, every carrier
- Delta on DCA to DTW, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on DTW to DCA69.6%
- Republic Airways on DTW to DCA64.2%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.