Carrier route record
AARDU→DCA
American Airlines · Raleigh to Washington
- Flights
- 205
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 10%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on RDU to DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 205 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 448 at 67.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on RDU 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
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 199 completed flights
Avg delay
124 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
63.3%
Every carrier on RDU to DCA, 1,989 flights
These figures cover 205 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.6% 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 RDU to DCA
American flew 205 of the 1,989 flights on RDU to DCA, about 10% of it. Its 75.4% on time is 12 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 63.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 75.4% to Frontier at 0.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 Airlines (this page)thin 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.
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 38 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am129 flights88.3%
- 8am–11am16 flights—
- 11am–2pm31 flights50.0%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am28 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 50.0% on time against 88.3% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 129 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on RDU to DCA through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025106 flights65.4%
- Oct–Dec 202549 flights85.4%
- Jan–Mar 202610 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202640 flights87.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. 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 75.4% on time across 205 flights.
American on RDU to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 87.2% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 65.4%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 68 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 6,060 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
36% 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 6,060 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 6,060 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 2,732 of the 6,060 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.93%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.6% 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 65.2% on time across 207 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 205 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 RDU to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.93% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 199 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to DCA, every carrier
- American on DCA to RDU, the return leg
- Envoy Air on RDU to DCA67.2%
- PSA Airlines on RDU to DCA60.5%
- Republic Airways on RDU to DCA59.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.