Route reliability record
SAV→DCA
Savannah to Washington
- Flights
- 1,105
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 519 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,105 SAV to DCA flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly SAV to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.6% of the time and Saturday flights 90.4%, against 78.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,044 completed flights
Avg delay
112 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.89%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
78.6% on time across 970 flights
These figures cover 1,105 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SAV 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 Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 83.3% | 41 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 970 | 78.6% | 118 min | 5.05% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 96 | 76.3% | 85 min | 3.12% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 33 | 66.7% | 62 min | 6.06% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on SAV to DCA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Savannah 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SAV → BWISavannah to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 80.5% | 81.7% | 1.52% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. SAV → DCASavannah to Washington | PSA Airlines | 74.6% | 78.6% | 5.05% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | OH 5146 07:11 |
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 41 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am90 flights89.4%
- 11am–2pm276 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm214 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm161 flights48.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.6% on time, against 89.6% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAV to DCA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On SAV to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 48.6%, a wide gap of 41.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.6%
- 8–11am89.4%
- 11am–2pm81.3%
- 2–5pm69.9%
- 5–8pm48.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
December is the weak month at 71.7% on time, against 87.9% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. June was the busiest month here, with 103 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 90.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.4%, a spread of 18 points.
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 26,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 18%Extreme weather
- 13%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 18% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 25,639 reported delay minutes.
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 to one.
Cancellations run at 4.89%, against 1.89% 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
10.2% 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.
The 519 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.8% on time across 1,104 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,105 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 4.89% 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. 1,044 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAV to DCA questions
How often is SAV to DCA delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.9% of the 1,105 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is SAV to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
78.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAV to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 48.6%, 41 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 December delays on SAV to DCA?
December is the weakest month at 71.7% on time, compared with 87.9% in May. Across the year that is 16 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 SAV — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- SAV to ATL, a related route87.1%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- SAV to CLT, a related route86.0%
- American Airlines on-time record83.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record78.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. SAV to DCA and DCA to SAV 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.