Route reliability record
SYR→DCA
Syracuse to Washington
- Flights
- 1,029
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 298 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,029 SYR to DCA flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Best time to fly SYR to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.3% of the time and Saturday flights 78.5%, against 67.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 99 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 973 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.15%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
66.0% on time across 541 flights
These figures cover 1,029 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.8% 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 SYR 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 89 | 82.8% | 45 min | 2.25% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 178 | 68.8% | 73 min | 3.93% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 541 | 66.0% | 100 min | 7.21% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 221 | 64.8% | 83 min | 2.26% | D |
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 34 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–8am326 flights86.3%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm364 flights64.5%
- 2pm–5pm2 flights—
- 5pm–8pm337 flights52.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.3% on time, against 86.3% 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 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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.
February is the weak month at 50.0% on time, against 83.3% in August. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 61.5%. 17 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 48% of the 28,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 12%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 27,835 reported delay minutes.
48% 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 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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.
Cancellations run at 5.15%, 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. 12.8% 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 298 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 runs 68.0% on time across 1,029 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,029 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.
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 5.15% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 973 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SYR to DCA questions
How often is SYR to DCA delayed?
About 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 32.3% of the 1,029 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is SYR to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
67.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 10 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SYR to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 52.3%, 34 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 February delays on SYR to DCA?
February is the weakest month at 50.0% on time, compared with 83.3% in August. Across the year that is 33 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 SYR — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on SYR to DCA68.8%
- PSA Airlines on SYR to DCA66.0%
- American Airlines on SYR to DCA64.8%
- SYR to ORD, a related route74.0%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- SYR to CLT, a related route80.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record82.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record68.8%
- PSA Airlines on-time record66.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. SYR to DCA and DCA to SYR are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed SYR to DCA’s on-time badge on your site
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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.