Route reliability record
GRR→DCA
Grand Rapids to Washington
- Flights
- 730
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 524 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.5% 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 730 GRR to DCA flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
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 91 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 693 completed flights
Avg delay
122 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.52%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
68.5% on time across 719 flights
These figures cover 730 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.4% 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 GRR 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 9 | 88.9% | 55 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 719 | 68.5% | 123 min | 4.59% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 0.0% | 32 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 26 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–8am362 flights80.9%
- 8am–11am2 flights—
- 11am–2pm23 flights—
- 2pm–5pm320 flights55.1%
- 5pm–8pm23 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 80.9% of the time, against 55.1% for the afternoon window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 362 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 42 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.
December is the weak month at 46.3% on time, against 88.1% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 84 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 61.2%. 16 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 27,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 20%Extreme weather
- 15%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 20% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 26,652 reported delay minutes.
40% 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 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 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.
Cancellations run at 4.52%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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. 13.4% 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.
The 524 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 65.2% on time across 731 flights, 3 points below 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 730 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 DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.52% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 693 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GRR to DCA questions
How often is GRR to DCA 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 31.5% of the 730 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is GRR to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
68.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on GRR to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 80.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 55.1%, 26 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 December delays on GRR to DCA?
December is the weakest month at 46.3% on time, compared with 88.1% in September. Across the year that is 42 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 GRR — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- GRR to ORD, a related route68.3%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- GRR to DTW, a related route78.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record88.9%
- PSA Airlines on-time record68.5%
- Envoy Air on-time record0.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. GRR to DCA and DCA to GRR are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed GRR to DCA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.