Route reliability record
MYR→DCA
Myrtle Beach to Washington
- Flights
- 755
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 372 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.3% 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 755 MYR to DCA flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly MYR to DCA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.0% of the time and Saturday flights 79.6%, against 72.3% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 53 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 714 completed flights
Avg delay
104 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.30%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
71.1% on time across 610 flights
These figures cover 755 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.8% 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 MYR 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 137 | 76.9% | 52 min | 5.11% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 5 | 75.0% | 86 min | 20.00% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 610 | 71.1% | 114 min | 5.25% | C− |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Myrtle Beach 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 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MYR → BWIMyrtle Beach to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 82.5% | 83.6% | 1.35% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 2. MYR → DCAMyrtle Beach to Washington | PSA Airlines | 67.4% | 71.1% | 5.25% | 8am–11am, 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 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–8am—
- 8am–11am136 flights87.0%
- 11am–2pm329 flights75.8%
- 2pm–5pm169 flights64.3%
- 5pm–8pm108 flights56.3%
- 8pm–5am13 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.3% on time, against 87.0% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 329 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 42 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 92.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 68 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.7%. 12 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 21,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 22%Extreme weather
- 18%Carrier
- 1%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 22% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 20,635 reported delay minutes.
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 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 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.
Cancellations run at 5.30%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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. 11.8% 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 372 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.4% on time across 755 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 755 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.
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 5.30% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 714 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MYR to DCA questions
How often is MYR 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 27.7% of the 755 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is MYR to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
72.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MYR to DCA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.3%, 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 October delays on MYR to DCA?
October is the weakest month at 50.8% on time, compared with 92.5% in May. Across the year that is 42 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 MYR — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on MYR to DCA76.9%
- PSA Airlines on MYR to DCA71.1%
- MYR to CLT, a related route84.2%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- MYR to ATL, a related route88.1%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record75.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MYR to DCA and DCA to MYR are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed MYR to DCA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.