Route reliability record
MKE→DCA
Milwaukee to Washington
- Flights
- 1,345
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 634 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 1,345 MKE to DCA flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 680 at 73.3% on time.
Best time to fly MKE to DCA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.5% of the time and Saturday flights 78.1%, against 72.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 46 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,284 completed flights
Avg delay
100 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.09%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
73.3% on time across 680 flights
These figures cover 1,345 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MKE to DCA
The two carriers here are closely matched: about 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 680 | 73.3% | 58 min | 1.76% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 658 | 72.3% | 144 min | 6.53% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 7 | 57.1% | 31 min | 0.00% | D+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.5% 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.
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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 | 83.4% | 84.7% | 1.57% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 2. MKE → DCAMilwaukee to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 72.0% | 73.3% | 1.76% | 8am–11am, Mon | — |
| 3. MKE → DCAMilwaukee to Washington | PSA Airlines | 67.6% | 72.3% | 6.53% | 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 36 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am370 flights82.1%
- 8am–11am321 flights89.5%
- 11am–2pm324 flights62.2%
- 2pm–5pm80 flights65.0%
- 5pm–8pm250 flights53.5%
- 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: 53.5% on time, against 89.5% 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 370 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MKE 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 MKE to DCA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 89.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 53.5%, a wide gap of 36.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am82.1%
- 8–11am89.5%
- 11am–2pm62.2%
- 2–5pm65.0%
- 5–8pm53.5%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 45% 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 63.0% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 83.0%. 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 117 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.1% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 69.0%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 35,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 34,865 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 89.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.09%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.3% on time across 1,346 flights, 4 points above 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 1,345 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 4.09% 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. 1,284 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MKE to DCA questions
How often is MKE to DCA delayed?
Roughly 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 27.3% of the 1,345 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MKE to DCA?
Southwest Airlines leads at 73.3% on time across 680 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 72.3%, a gap of about 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 89.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.5%, 36 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 MKE to DCA?
July is the weakest month at 63.0% on time, compared with 83.0% in September. 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 MKE — the return legseparate record
- Milwaukee Mitchell International (MKE) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on MKE to DCA73.3%
- PSA Airlines on MKE to DCA72.3%
- MKE to ORD, a related route68.4%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- MKE to DEN, a related route78.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record72.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record57.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.
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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.