Route reliability record
TYS→DCA
Knoxville to Washington
- Flights
- 1,021
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 437 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 1,021 TYS to DCA flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly TYS to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 81.7% of the time and Saturday flights 78.6%, against 69.9% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 74 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 970 completed flights
Avg delay
133 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.41%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
69.9% on time across 1,019 flights
These figures cover 1,021 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.5% 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 TYS 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 1,019 | 69.9% | 133 min | 4.42% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 175 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on TYS 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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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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am346 flights81.7%
- 8am–11am30 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm318 flights67.5%
- 2pm–5pm98 flights64.5%
- 5pm–8pm229 flights55.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.8% on time, against 81.7% 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 346 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TYS 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 TYS to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 81.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 55.8%, a wide gap of 25.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am81.7%
- 8–11am76.7%
- 11am–2pm67.5%
- 2–5pm64.5%
- 5–8pm55.8%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 83.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 94 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 64.1%, a spread of 15 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 39,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%Extreme weather
- 11%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 38,868 reported delay minutes.
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 4.41%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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
15.5% 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.
At 437 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 65.7% on time across 1,021 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,021 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 4.41% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.2 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. 970 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TYS to DCA questions
How often is TYS 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 30.1% of the 1,021 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.2 hours on average.
How reliable is TYS to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
69.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TYS to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 81.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.8%, 26 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 March delays on TYS to DCA?
March is the weakest month at 57.3% on time, compared with 83.5% in May. Across the year that is 26 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 TYS — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- TYS to ORD, a related route68.8%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- TYS to DFW, a related route77.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record100.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record69.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record0.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. TYS to DCA and DCA to TYS 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.