Route reliability record
JFK→DCA
New York to Washington
- Flights
- 2,528
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 213 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 2,528 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 2,082 at 70.7% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 98 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,385 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.34%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
70.7% on time across 2,082 flights
These figures cover 2,528 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% 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 JFK to DCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 70.7% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 54.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 446 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 2,082 | 70.7% | 67 min | 5.38% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 446 | 54.5% | 84 min | 5.16% | F− |
Republic Airways cancels 5.4% 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 25 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am164 flights83.8%
- 8am–11am540 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm69 flights61.8%
- 2pm–5pm561 flights58.5%
- 5pm–8pm261 flights62.6%
- 8pm–5am933 flights62.7%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.8% of the time, against 58.5% for the afternoon window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 933 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
February is the weak month at 52.6% on time, against 82.9% 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. November was the busiest month here, with 263 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 57.9%. 22 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 55,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% 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 55,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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 54,597 reported delay minutes.
41% 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 22,000 minutes out of 55,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 5.34%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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. 12.3% 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 213 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.1% on time across 2,496 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,528 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 5.34% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 2,385 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to DCA questions
How often is JFK 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 32.2% of the 2,528 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 JFK to DCA?
Republic Airways leads at 70.7% on time across 2,082 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 54.5%, a gap of 16 points. 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 JFK to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 58.5%, 25 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 JFK to DCA?
February is the weakest month at 52.6% on time, compared with 82.9% in September. Across the year that is 30 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on-time record70.7%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record54.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. JFK to DCA and DCA to JFK 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.