Route reliability record
PHX→DCA
Phoenix to Washington
- Flights
- 1,088
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,979 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,088 PHX to DCA flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHX to DCA: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.3% of the time and Saturday flights 89.5%, against 83.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 63 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,058 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
83.9% on time across 1,088 flights
These figures cover 1,088 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX 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 Airlines | 1,088 | 83.9% | 66 min | 1.47% | B |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHX → IADPhoenix to Washington | United Airlines | 89.0% | 89.7% | 0.79% | 5am–8am, Thu | UA 1873 09:00 |
| 2. PHX → DCAPhoenix to Washington | American Airlines | 82.7% | 83.9% | 1.47% | 8pm–5am, Sat | — |
| 3. PHX → BWIPhoenix to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 79.5% | 80.3% | 1.01% | 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 18 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–11am365 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm239 flights76.4%
- 2pm–5pm125 flights73.3%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am359 flights91.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 91.3% on time across 359 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 365 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 75.8%. August is the strongest month at 94.6%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 19 points. March was the busiest month here, with 94 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 89.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.9%. 11 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 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
40% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 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 11,201 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 4,208 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.47% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.29%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 1,979 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 82.3% on time across 1,088 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,088 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: treat all of this as provisional. 1,088 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 83.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,058 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to DCA questions
How often is PHX to DCA delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.1% of the 1,088 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is PHX to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
83.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHX to DCA?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 91.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 73.3%, 18 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 PHX to DCA?
March is the weakest month at 75.8% on time, compared with 94.6% in August. 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 PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.8%
- American Airlines on-time record83.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. PHX to DCA and DCA to PHX 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.