OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Des Moines to Washington

897 miData through May 2026Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on DSM–DCA arrive on time 72% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate72%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay55 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled4.0%of scheduled flights

based on 352 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

Not enough comparable data to name a most-on-time carrier — low-data carriers aren't ranked.

  • PSA Airlines
    On-time75%
    Medianon time
    p9050 min
    Cancel2.7%
    Flights258
  • Republic Airways
    On-time64%
    Medianon time
    p9080 min
    Cancel7.4%
    Flights94

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline19%
  • Weather17%
  • Air traffic (NAS)19%
  • Late aircraft45%
  • Security0%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Late aircraft.

When flights don't go

Why flights were cancelled

  • Airline14%
  • Weather64%
  • Air traffic (NAS)21%
  • Security0%

Most cancellations here are attributed to Weather. Shares are among 14 cancellations with a reported cause (BTS reports causes from June 2003).

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly DSM → DCA

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-06 .. 2026-05).

Best time of day

Mornings are the most reliable time of day to fly this route — 80% on time.

  • Mornings80% on time · p90 25 min · 1,048 flights
  • Middays74% on time · p90 55 min · 758 flights
  • Afternoons66% on time · p90 60 min · 319 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 73% to 79% on time.

  • Thursdays79% on time · p90 35 min · 302 flights
  • Sundays78% on time · p90 30 min · 308 flights
  • Tuesdays76% on time · p90 35 min · 306 flights
  • Wednesdays76% on time · p90 40 min · 308 flights
  • Mondays75% on time · p90 55 min · 306 flights
  • Saturdays74% on time · p90 45 min · 290 flights
  • Fridays73% on time · p90 35 min · 305 flights

Keep exploring

Related pages

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.