Route reliability record
ORD→DCA
Chicago to Washington
- Flights
- 7,104
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 612 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 7,104 ORD to DCA flights, of which United Airlines flew 3,411 at 70.1% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.3% of the time and Saturday flights 74.9%, against 69.0% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 70.1% on time across 3,411 flights.
Key figures
On time
69.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,853 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.04%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
70.1% on time across 3,411 flights
These figures cover 7,104 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to DCA
The three carriers here are closely matched: 4 points 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 | 171 | 83.5% | 47 min | 2.34% | B |
| United Airlines | 3,411 | 70.1% | 74 min | 2.14% | C |
| Republic Airways | 1,150 | 69.8% | 73 min | 4.43% | C− |
| American Airlines | 2,268 | 66.3% | 91 min | 3.62% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 104 | 57.1% | 106 min | 5.77% | D− |
Republic Airways cancels 4.4% 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 ORD 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → BWIChicago to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 75.7% | 77.8% | 2.74% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | — |
| 2. ORD → IADChicago to Washington | United Airlines | 75.3% | 75.9% | 0.76% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → BWIChicago to Baltimore | Envoy Air | 74.4% | 77.3% | 3.80% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. ORD → BWIChicago to Baltimore | United Airlines | 69.2% | 70.3% | 1.59% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → DCAChicago to Washington | United Airlines | 68.6% | 70.1% | 2.14% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 1077 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 29 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,137 flights84.3%
- 8am–11am1,669 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm1,316 flights62.6%
- 2pm–5pm1,172 flights63.0%
- 5pm–8pm1,297 flights54.9%
- 8pm–5am513 flights62.9%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.9% on time, against 84.3% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,669 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 54.9%, a wide gap of 29.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.3%
- 8–11am80.2%
- 11am–2pm62.6%
- 2–5pm63.0%
- 5–8pm54.9%
- 8pm–5am62.9%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
August is the worst month at 62.0% on time, 13 points below October, the best at 75.0%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 647 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 74.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.0%, a spread of 10 points.
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 170,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 170,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 170,048 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 84.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.04%, against 1.89% 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
13.2% 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 612 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 73.8% on time across 7,112 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.
The sample behind these figures is 7,104 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 3.04% 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. 6,853 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to DCA questions
How often is ORD to DCA delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 31.0% of the 7,104 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to DCA?
United Airlines leads at 70.1% on time across 3,411 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 66.3%, a gap of 4 points. 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 ORD to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 54.9%, 29 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 August delays on ORD to DCA?
August is the weakest month at 62.0% on time, compared with 75.0% in October. Across the year that is 13 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to DCA83.5%
- United Airlines on ORD to DCA70.1%
- Republic Airways on ORD to DCA69.8%
- American Airlines on ORD to DCA66.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to DCA57.1%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record83.5%
- United Airlines on-time record70.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record69.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to DCA and DCA to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ORD 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.