Route reliability record
TYS→DCA
Knoxville to Washington
- Flights
- 1,023
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 437 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 1,023 TYS to DCA flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly TYS to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 81.2% of the time and Saturday flights 75.2%, against 70.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 70 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 967 completed flights
Avg delay
119 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.89%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
70.1% on time across 983 flights
These figures cover 1,023 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.7% 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 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 | 38 | 85.7% | 88 min | 7.89% | A− |
| PSA Airlines | 983 | 70.1% | 120 min | 4.78% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 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.
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 29 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–8am346 flights81.2%
- 8am–11am56 flights76.4%
- 11am–2pm294 flights72.5%
- 2pm–5pm94 flights64.0%
- 5pm–8pm233 flights52.6%
- 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: 52.6% on time, against 81.2% 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.
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 75.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 64.3%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 34,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% 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 34,000 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. The split is drawn from 33,912 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 13,000 of the 34,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 4.89%, 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. 14.7% 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 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 runs 68.4% on time across 1,023 flights, within 2 points 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. 1,023 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 4.89% 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. 967 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 29.4% of the 1,023 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is TYS to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
70.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 81.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 52.6%, 29 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 route68.2%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- TYS to ATL, a related route87.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record85.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record70.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record50.0%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.