Carrier route record
AAFLL→DCA
American Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Washington
- Flights
- 575
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on FLL to DCA draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is an hour and a half behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 575 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on FLL to DCA runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 115 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 559 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
67.8%
Every carrier on FLL to DCA, 2,320 flights
These figures cover 575 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on FLL to DCA
American flew 575 of the 2,320 flights on FLL to DCA, about 25% of it. Its 65.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 67.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 69.2% to Southwest at 65.5%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 1,381 | 69.2% | 73 min | 2.97% | C |
| American Airlines (this page) | 575 | 65.8% | 82 min | 2.43% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 65.5% | 60 min | 0.82% | C+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm321 flights70.9%
- 2pm–5pm43 flights67.4%
- 5pm–8pm193 flights56.2%
- 8pm–5am18 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.2% on time, against 70.9% for the 11am–2pm 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 321 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on FLL to DCA through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 96.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 71 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 56.6%, a spread of 22 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on FLL to DCA runs when it is late
The 191 late arrivals split 46 under half an hour, 65 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 80 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early126 flights22.5%
- Within 15 min242 flights43.3%
- 15–29 min late46 flights8.2%
- 30–59 min late65 flights11.6%
- 1–2 hours late48 flights8.6%
- 2+ hours late32 flights5.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 559 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
35 of 204 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 22 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on FLL to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 10 March 2026, 24 hours 25 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across March, April and October, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 10 March 2026 | 24 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 March 2026 | 7 hours 42 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 7 April 2026 | 7 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 April 2026 | 6 hours 51 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 October 2025 | 5 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
57% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 15,715 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.43% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.35%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
14.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 899 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 72.1% on time across 575 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 575 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 FLL to DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 575 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 65.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 559 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to DCA, every carrier
- American on DCA to FLL, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to DCA69.2%
- Southwest Airlines on FLL to DCA65.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.