Carrier route record

DLLAX→DCA

Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to Washington

Flights: 362
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 Delta Air Lines.

Delta on LAX to DCA 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 close to two hours on average. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on LAX to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 352 completed flights

Avg delay

101 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.21%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

79.9%

Every carrier on LAX to DCA, 1,454 flights

These figures cover 362 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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

Delta against every carrier on LAX to DCA

Delta flew 362 of the 1,454 flights on LAX to DCA, about 25% of it. Its 80.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 80.5% to Alaska at 78.2%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines	728	80.5%	66 min	1.10%	B
Delta Air Lines (this page)thin sample	362	80.4%	101 min	2.21%	B
Alaska Airlinesthin sample	364	78.2%	68 min	0.82%	B+

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on LAX to DCA

DL 39207:3580.4% · 362 flights

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Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

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 362 flights.

5am–8am202 flights82.5%
8am–11am160 flights77.8%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 82.5% on time for the 5am–8am window against 77.8% for 8am–11am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 202 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on LAX to DCA through the year

Jul–Sep 202530 flights—
Oct–Dec 202590 flights82.0%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights78.7%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights80.2%
Jul–Sep 202661 flights78.0%

Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 80.4% on time across 362 flights.

Quarter by quarter Delta on LAX to DCA held fairly steady: 82.0% in Oct–Dec 2025, 78.7% in Jan–Mar 2026, 80.2% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 78.0% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 4 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.5%, a spread of 16 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Delta on LAX to DCA runs when it is late

Delta on LAX to DCA often beats the schedule: 114 of 352 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 69 late arrivals split 23 under half an hour, 19 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 27 an hour or more.

15+ min early114 flights32.4%
Within 15 min169 flights48.0%
15–29 min late23 flights6.5%
30–59 min late19 flights5.4%
1–2 hours late8 flights2.3%
2+ hours late19 flights5.4%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 352 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

6 of 41 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. In the other direction, 34 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.

The worst days

Worst days for Delta on LAX to DCA

The latest arrival of the period was on 5 June 2026, 10 hours 50 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of Delta on LAX to DCA in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
5 June 2026	10 hours 50 minutes	Carrier
24 December 2025	6 hours 51 minutes	Carrier
12 February 2026	6 hours 35 minutes	Carrier
2 April 2026	6 hours 19 minutes	Carrier
12 June 2026	5 hours 20 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

Carrier accounts for 83% of the 6,952 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Carrier
83%
National Airspace System
16%
Late-arriving aircraft
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 83%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,770 of the 6,952 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,952 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 2.21% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here 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 close to two hours, 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 77.3% on time across 362 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. 362 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 Delta on LAX to DCA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 362 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 80.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 352 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures