Route reliability record
MKE→DCA
Milwaukee to Washington
- Flights
- 1,349
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 634 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,349 MKE to DCA flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 659 at 75.8% on time.
Best time to fly MKE to DCA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.0% of the time and Saturday flights 80.2%, against 75.4% 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
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,295 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.63%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
75.8% on time across 659 flights
These figures cover 1,349 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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 MKE 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 659 | 75.8% | 134 min | 5.46% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 683 | 75.1% | 58 min | 1.90% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 7 | 57.1% | 31 min | 0.00% | D+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.5% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on MKE 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Milwaukee 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. MKE → BWIMilwaukee to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 82.9% | 84.2% | 1.57% | 11am–2pm, Tue (route) | — |
| 2. MKE → DCAMilwaukee to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 73.7% | 75.1% | 1.90% | 8am–11am, Mon | — |
| 3. MKE → DCAMilwaukee to Washington | PSA Airlines | 71.7% | 75.8% | 5.46% | 5am–8am, Sat | OH 5646 06:00 |
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 34 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–8am372 flights82.7%
- 8am–11am326 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm324 flights68.5%
- 2pm–5pm130 flights64.8%
- 5pm–8pm197 flights55.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.7% on time, against 90.0% for the 8am–11am 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 372 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 83.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 120 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.3%. 8 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 30,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 12,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 29,888 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.63%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.7% 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.
The 634 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 runs 77.3% on time across 1,349 flights, within 2 points 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 1,349 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 3.63% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,295 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MKE to DCA questions
How often is MKE 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 24.6% of the 1,349 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MKE to DCA?
PSA Airlines leads at 75.8% on time across 659 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 75.1%, 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 MKE to DCA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.7%, 34 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 MKE to DCA?
March is the weakest month at 63.7% on time, compared with 83.0% in September. Across the year that is 19 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 MKE — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on MKE to DCA75.8%
- Southwest Airlines on MKE to DCA75.1%
- MKE to ORD, a related route67.4%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- MKE to DEN, a related route78.1%
- PSA Airlines on-time record75.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record57.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MKE to DCA and DCA to MKE are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed MKE to DCA’s on-time badge on your site
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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.