Route reliability record
JAX→DCA
Jacksonville to Washington
- Flights
- 1,464
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 634 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,464 JAX to DCA flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly JAX to DCA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.2% of the time and Saturday flights 80.1%, against 71.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 59 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,424 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.53%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
71.6% on time across 1,004 flights
These figures cover 1,464 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 JAX 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 124 | 84.3% | 108 min | 2.42% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,004 | 71.6% | 72 min | 2.19% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 332 | 66.8% | 129 min | 3.61% | C− |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Jacksonville 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. JAX → IADJacksonville to Washington | United Airlines | 89.7% | 90.6% | 1.02% | 11am–2pm, Sat | UA 1938 13:25 |
| 2. JAX → BWIJacksonville to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 79.0% | 80.0% | 1.29% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 3. JAX → DCAJacksonville to Washington | American Airlines | 70.0% | 71.6% | 2.19% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 31 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–8am353 flights86.5%
- 8am–11am51 flights90.2%
- 11am–2pm358 flights76.0%
- 2pm–5pm359 flights59.4%
- 5pm–8pm295 flights61.0%
- 8pm–5am48 flights66.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.2% of the time, against 59.4% for the afternoon window. That is 31 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 359 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
July is the worst month at 59.3% on time, 23 points below April, the best at 82.1%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. January was the busiest month here, with 147 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.4%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 36,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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. The split is drawn from 35,684 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.53%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.4% 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 634 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 runs 72.9% on time across 1,463 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,464 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. April runs 82.1% on time and July 59.3%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,424 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JAX to DCA questions
How often is JAX to DCA delayed?
Roughly 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 28.3% of the 1,464 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is JAX to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
71.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on JAX to DCA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 59.4%, 31 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 July delays on JAX to DCA?
July is the weakest month at 59.3% on time, compared with 82.1% in April. Across the year that is 23 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 JAX — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on JAX to DCA84.3%
- American Airlines on JAX to DCA71.6%
- PSA Airlines on JAX to DCA66.8%
- JAX to ATL, a related route84.9%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- JAX to ORD, a related route77.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record84.3%
- American Airlines on-time record71.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JAX to DCA and DCA to JAX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed JAX 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.