Route reliability record
LAX→DCA
Los Angeles to Washington
- Flights
- 1,454
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,311 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,454 LAX to DCA flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly LAX to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.4%, against 79.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,423 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.31%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.5% on time across 728 flights
These figures cover 1,454 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAX 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 728 | 80.5% | 66 min | 1.10% | B |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 362 | 80.4% | 101 min | 2.21% | B |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 78.2% | 68 min | 0.82% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX to DCA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles 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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → BWILos Angeles to Baltimore | United Airlines | 88.8% | 89.1% | 0.35% | 11am–2pm, Mon | — |
| 2. LAX → IADLos Angeles to Washington | United Airlines | 87.5% | 88.0% | 0.56% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2667 10:39 |
| 3. LAX → DCALos Angeles to Washington | American Airlines | 79.6% | 80.5% | 1.10% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 4. LAX → BWILos Angeles to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 75.4% | 76.2% | 1.08% | 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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 1,454 flights.
- 5am–8am294 flights84.9%
- 8am–11am432 flights82.8%
- 11am–2pm727 flights76.2%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 76.2% on time against 84.9% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 727 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX to DCA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On LAX to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.9% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 76.2%, a real gap of 8.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.9%
- 8–11am82.8%
- 11am–2pm76.2%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 69.3% on time, 20 points below October, the best at 89.5%. 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.6%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,640 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 21,494 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.31% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.83%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,311 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.6% on time across 1,454 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,454 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. October runs 89.5% on time and July 69.3%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,423 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to DCA questions
How often is LAX to DCA delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.1% of the 1,454 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is LAX to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
79.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAX to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.9% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 76.2%, 9 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 LAX to DCA?
July is the weakest month at 69.3% on time, compared with 89.5% in October. Across the year that is 20 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 LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on LAX to DCA80.5%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to DCA80.4%
- Alaska Airlines on LAX to DCA78.2%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- American Airlines on-time record80.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.4%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record78.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. LAX to DCA and DCA to LAX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.