Route reliability record
LGA→DCA
New York to Washington
- Flights
- 4,830
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 214 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.5% 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 4,830 flights, with a median arrival 3 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 93 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,560 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.45%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
68.4% on time across 4,751 flights
These figures cover 4,830 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 LGA 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 Airways | 4,751 | 68.4% | 62 min | 5.51% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 24 | 60.9% | 110 min | 4.17% | D− |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 55 | 60.0% | 83 min | 0.00% | D+ |
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–8am775 flights83.9%
- 8am–11am875 flights78.3%
- 11am–2pm826 flights74.9%
- 2pm–5pm767 flights57.7%
- 5pm–8pm1,001 flights57.5%
- 8pm–5am586 flights53.0%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.0% on time, against 83.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,001 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 54.0%. August is the strongest month at 87.6%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 34 points. March was the busiest month here, with 436 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.4%. 20 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 90,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 4%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 90,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 89,815 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 37,000 minutes out of 90,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 5.45%, 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. 10.8% 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 214 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 runs 67.6% on time across 4,833 flights, within half 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 4,830 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 5.45% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 4,560 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to DCA questions
How often is LGA 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 31.7% of the 4,830 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is LGA to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
68.3% 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 LGA to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 53.0%, 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 March delays on LGA to DCA?
March is the weakest month at 54.0% on time, compared with 87.6% in August. Across the year that is 34 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 LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on-time record68.4%
- American Airlines on-time record60.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record60.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. LGA to DCA and DCA to LGA 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.