Carrier route record
ASSFO→DCA
Alaska Airlines · San Francisco to Washington
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.
Alaska on SFO to DCA lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Alaska on SFO 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
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.83%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.4%
Every carrier on SFO to DCA, 1,090 flights
These figures cover 363 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Alaska against every carrier on SFO to DCA
Alaska flew 363 of the 1,090 flights on SFO to DCA, about 33% of it. Its 78.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.4% to Alaska at 78.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 727 | 78.4% | 58 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample | 363 | 78.3% | 51 min | 0.83% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Alaska flight numbers on SFO to DCA
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Departure window
When Alaska runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 363 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Alaska's SFO to DCA record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 78.3% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
Alaska on SFO to DCA through the year
August is the worst month at 67.7% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 86.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.6%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Alaska on SFO to DCA runs when it is late
Alaska on SFO to DCA often beats the schedule: 161 of 359 completed flights, 45%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 78 late arrivals split 30 under half an hour, 29 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 19 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early161 flights44.8%
- Within 15 min120 flights33.4%
- 15–29 min late30 flights8.4%
- 30–59 min late29 flights8.1%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights3.9%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 359 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 97 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 30 still arrived on time. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Alaska on SFO to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 May 2026, 4 hours 3 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 May 2026 | 4 hours 3 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 December 2025 | 2 hours 53 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 January 2026 | 2 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 November 2025 | 2 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 April 2026 | 2 hours 4 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Alaska runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 3,961 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%National Airspace System
- 15%Carrier
- 1%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,961 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. The split is drawn from 3,961 reported delay minutes.
39% 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 1,544 minutes out of 3,961, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.83%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,442 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 66.0% on time across 363 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 363 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 Alaska on SFO to DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 363 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 78.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 359 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to DCA, every carrier
- Alaska on DCA to SFO, the return leg
- United Airlines on SFO to DCA78.4%
- Alaska Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.