Route reliability record
MCI→DCA
Kansas City to Washington
- Flights
- 1,926
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 949 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,926 MCI to DCA flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 999 at 73.1% on time.
Best time to fly MCI to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.1% of the time and Saturday flights 84.4%, against 74.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,851 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.01%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
73.1% on time across 999 flights
These figures cover 1,926 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 MCI to DCA
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 168 | 90.2% | 85 min | 2.38% | A |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 25 | 80.0% | 41 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 152 | 74.8% | 36 min | 0.66% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 999 | 73.1% | 58 min | 1.20% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 582 | 72.8% | 136 min | 7.04% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.0% 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Kansas City 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. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MCI → BWIKansas City to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 80.7% | 82.4% | 2.03% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. MCI → DCAKansas City to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 72.2% | 73.1% | 1.20% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 3. MCI → DCAKansas City to Washington | PSA Airlines | 67.7% | 72.8% | 7.04% | 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 33 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–8am585 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am266 flights83.7%
- 11am–2pm449 flights74.1%
- 2pm–5pm248 flights63.8%
- 5pm–8pm370 flights55.2%
- 8pm–5am8 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.2% on time, against 88.1% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 585 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 65.1% on time, 21 points below January, the best at 86.4%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 166 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.4%. 13 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 45% of the 38,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
45% 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 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 37,947 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.01%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.
The 949 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.7% on time across 1,927 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,926 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.01% 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. 1,851 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCI to DCA questions
How often is MCI to DCA delayed?
About 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 25.2% of the 1,926 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 MCI to DCA?
Southwest Airlines leads at 73.1% on time across 999 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 72.8%, a gap of half a point. 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 MCI to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.2%, 33 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 MCI to DCA?
July is the weakest month at 65.1% on time, compared with 86.4% in January. Across the year that is 21 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 MCI — the return legseparate record
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on MCI to DCA90.2%
- Republic Airways on MCI to DCA74.8%
- Southwest Airlines on MCI to DCA73.1%
- PSA Airlines on MCI to DCA72.8%
- MCI to DEN, a related route76.1%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- MCI to ORD, a related route74.7%
- Envoy Air on-time record90.2%
- American Airlines on-time record80.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MCI to DCA and DCA to MCI 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.