Carrier route record
AAPWM→DCA
American Airlines · Portland to Washington
- Flights
- 655
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 57%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PWM to DCA lands a B, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 655 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PWM to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 637 completed flights
Avg delay
112 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.5%
Every carrier on PWM to DCA, 1,153 flights
These figures cover 655 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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
American against every carrier on PWM to DCA
American flew 655 of the 1,153 flights on PWM to DCA, most of the route. Its 76.1% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 81.1% to Envoy at 50.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 100 | 81.1% | 79 min | 5.00% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 655 | 76.1% | 112 min | 2.29% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 394 | 70.1% | 102 min | 5.84% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 50.0% | 22 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 21 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–8am223 flights88.9%
- 8am–11am40 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm201 flights71.6%
- 2pm–5pm10 flights—
- 5pm–8pm181 flights67.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.9% of the time, against 67.8% for the evening window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 223 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PWM to DCA through the year
July is the worst month at 57.4% on time, 31 points below February, the best at 88.2%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.0%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
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 17,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
41% 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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 17,049 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, 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 6,572 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.29% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.46%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.7% 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 482 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.9% on time across 655 flights, 6 points below 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 655 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 PWM to DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 655 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 76.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 637 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PWM to DCA, every carrier
- American on DCA to PWM, the return leg
- Republic Airways on PWM to DCA81.1%
- PSA Airlines on PWM to DCA70.1%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.