OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Washington to Houston

1,218 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on DCA–HOU arrive on time 76% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate76%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay45 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled2.4%of scheduled flights

based on 1,056 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • Southwest Airlines
    On-time76%
    Medianon time
    p9045 min
    Cancel2.4%
    Flights1,056

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline28%
  • Weather2%
  • Air traffic (NAS)20%
  • Late aircraft51%
  • 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 → HOU

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

Best time of day

On-time rates are fairly even by time of day on this route — ranging from 66% to 89% on time.

  • Mornings89% on time · p90 10 min · 1,095 flights
  • Afternoons85% on time · p90 30 min · 158 flights · limited
  • Middays73% on time · p90 45 min · 851 flights
  • Evenings66% on time · p90 70 min · 1,006 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 71% to 81% on time.

  • Saturdays81% on time · p90 30 min · 325 flights
  • Thursdays79% on time · p90 35 min · 465 flights
  • Tuesdays79% on time · p90 35 min · 471 flights
  • Mondays79% on time · p90 35 min · 471 flights
  • Wednesdays78% on time · p90 30 min · 471 flights
  • Sundays72% on time · p90 55 min · 444 flights
  • Fridays71% on time · p90 50 min · 468 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.