Route reliability record
RDU→DCA
Raleigh to Washington
- Flights
- 1,989
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 227 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,989 RDU to DCA flights, of which Envoy Air flew 448 at 67.2% on time.
Best time to fly RDU to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.5% of the time and Saturday flights 80.6%, against 63.3% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 67.2% on time across 448 flights.
Key figures
On time
63.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,885 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Envoy
67.2% on time across 448 flights
These figures cover 1,989 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.0% 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 RDU to DCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 67.2% of the time; Republic Airways manages 59.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 497 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 205 | 75.4% | 124 min | 2.93% | B |
| Envoy Air | 448 | 67.2% | 67 min | 4.69% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 838 | 60.5% | 74 min | 5.61% | D− |
| Republic Airways | 497 | 59.4% | 72 min | 5.43% | D− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 891 min | 0.00% | F+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.6% 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Raleigh 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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. RDU → IADRaleigh to Washington | United Airlines | 86.3% | 87.5% | 1.39% | 8am–11am, Sat | UA 2463 15:02 |
| 2. RDU → BWIRaleigh to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 83.8% | 85.8% | 2.35% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | — |
| 3. RDU → DCARaleigh to Washington | Envoy Air | 64.0% | 67.2% | 4.69% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 4. RDU → DCARaleigh to Washington | PSA Airlines | 57.1% | 60.5% | 5.61% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 5. RDU → DCARaleigh to Washington | Republic Airways | 56.2% | 59.4% | 5.43% | 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 46 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am336 flights83.5%
- 8am–11am363 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm496 flights65.6%
- 2pm–5pm187 flights48.0%
- 5pm–8pm333 flights47.5%
- 8pm–5am274 flights37.9%
Scale runs 30% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 37.9% on time, against 83.5% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 496 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 October, when the on-time rate falls to 48.6%. January is the strongest month at 68.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 20 points. October was the busiest month here, with 178 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 55.0%. 26 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 53,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
46% 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 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 53,163 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 83.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.08%, 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. 14.0% 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 227 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 69.3% on time across 1,990 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,989 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 5.08% 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. 1,885 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDU to DCA questions
How often is RDU to DCA delayed?
Roughly 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 36.7% of the 1,989 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on RDU to DCA?
Envoy Air leads at 67.2% on time across 448 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 59.4%, a gap of 8 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 RDU to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 37.9%, 46 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 RDU to DCA?
October is the weakest month at 48.6% on time, compared with 68.4% in January. Across the year that is 20 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 RDU — the return legseparate record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on RDU to DCA75.4%
- Envoy Air on RDU to DCA67.2%
- PSA Airlines on RDU to DCA60.5%
- Republic Airways on RDU to DCA59.4%
- RDU to ATL, a related route87.6%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- RDU to ORD, a related route74.4%
- American Airlines on-time record75.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record67.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record60.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. RDU to DCA and DCA to RDU 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.