OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Washington to Dallas

1,184 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on DCA–DAL arrive on time 71% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate71%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay50 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled2.4%of scheduled flights

based on 1,735 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • Southwest Airlines
    On-time71%
    Medianon time
    p9050 min
    Cancel2.4%
    Flights1,735

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline29%
  • Weather5%
  • Air traffic (NAS)16%
  • Late aircraft50%
  • Security0%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Late aircraft.

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly DCA → DAL

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-01 .. 2025-12).

Best time of day

Mornings are the most reliable time of day to fly this route — 89% on time.

  • Mornings89% on time · p90 10 min · 1,513 flights
  • Middays79% on time · p90 30 min · 1,117 flights
  • Afternoons72% on time · p90 40 min · 653 flights
  • Overnights68% on time · p90 75 min · 820 flights
  • Evenings61% on time · p90 70 min · 1,027 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 69% to 80% on time.

  • Saturdays80% on time · p90 30 min · 497 flights
  • Tuesdays78% on time · p90 35 min · 785 flights
  • Wednesdays77% on time · p90 35 min · 785 flights
  • Mondays76% on time · p90 40 min · 785 flights
  • Thursdays75% on time · p90 45 min · 771 flights
  • Fridays72% on time · p90 50 min · 778 flights
  • Sundays69% on time · p90 50 min · 729 flights
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Methodology

A flight is on time when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule — the US DOT / BTS standard. Median and p90(the “1-in-10 bad day”) are read from the full arrival-delay distribution, never averaged across periods.

Figures cover a carrier’s own BTS-coded flights. Cells below ~200 flights are flagged as limited data. All numbers are pre-computed from public BTS On-Time Performance data.