Carrier route record
AAPIT→DCA
American Airlines · Pittsburgh to Washington
- Flights
- 123
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PIT to DCA earns a D, which is as low as this site's scale goes for a reason. Only 57.0% of flights arrive inside the 15-minute window, 20 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. Late arrivals average close to two hours. Treat any tight connection here as a coin flip. That rests on 123 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 749 at 73.9% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on PIT to DCA runs 20 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 203 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
57.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 121 completed flights
Avg delay
119 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.63%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
67.3%
Every carrier on PIT to DCA, 1,413 flights
These figures cover 123 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 20.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PIT to DCA
American flew 123 of the 1,413 flights on PIT to DCA, about 9% of it. Its 57.0% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 67.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 73.9% to Envoy at 51.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 73.9% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 64.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 371 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 749 | 73.9% | 53 min | 2.14% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 371 | 64.7% | 94 min | 7.28% | D− |
| American Airlines (this page)thin sample | 123 | 57.0% | 119 min | 1.63% | D |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 170 | 51.2% | 52 min | 2.35% | F |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.3% 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.
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.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 41 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am33 flights87.9%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm88 flights46.5%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 46.5% on time, against 87.9% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 88 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PIT to DCA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202524 flights—
- Oct–Dec 20254 flights—
- Jan–Mar 20267 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202635 flights51.4%
- Jul–Sep 202653 flights43.1%
Scale runs 35% to 55%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 57.0% on time across 123 flights.
Split by quarter, American on PIT to DCA logged 24 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 4 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 7 flights in Jan–Mar 2026, 35 flights in Apr–Jun 2026 and 53 flights in Jul–Sep 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 57.0% annual figure is the one to use.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PIT to DCA runs when it is late
The 52 late arrivals split 12 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 25 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early21 flights17.4%
- Within 15 min48 flights39.7%
- 15–29 min late12 flights9.9%
- 30–59 min late15 flights12.4%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights8.3%
- 2+ hours late15 flights12.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 121 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 37 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 1 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 16 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PIT to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 July 2026, 16 hours 12 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 July 2026 | 16 hours 12 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 7 August 2026 | 13 hours 15 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 10 July 2026 | 8 hours 24 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 August 2026 | 4 hours 54 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 14 June 2026 | 3 hours 50 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 59% of the 6,177 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%National Airspace System
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,177 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 6,177 reported delay minutes.
59% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 3,646 minutes out of 6,177, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
20.7% 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.
At 204 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 runs 57.0% on time across 123 flights, within half a point 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. 123 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on PIT to DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 123 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 57.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 121 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PIT to DCA, every carrier
- American on DCA to PIT, the return leg
- Republic Airways on PIT to DCA73.9%
- PSA Airlines on PIT to DCA64.7%
- Envoy Air on PIT to DCA51.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.