OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Des Moines to Washington

897 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on DSM–DCA arrive on time 70% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate70%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay40 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled6.9%of scheduled flights

based on 452 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • Republic Airways
    On-time56%
    Medianon time
    p9085 min
    Cancel4.7%
    Flights43
  • PSA Airlinesbest
    On-time72%
    Medianon time
    p9040 min
    Cancel7.1%
    Flights409

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline30%
  • Weather10%
  • Air traffic (NAS)24%
  • Late aircraft36%
  • 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 DSM → DCA

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 69% to 79% on time.

  • Mornings79% on time · p90 25 min · 1,041 flights
  • Evenings79% on time · p90 35 min · 80 flights · limited
  • Middays78% on time · p90 40 min · 777 flights
  • Afternoons69% on time · p90 50 min · 354 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 73% to 81% on time.

  • Sundays81% on time · p90 25 min · 328 flights
  • Tuesdays79% on time · p90 30 min · 330 flights
  • Mondays78% on time · p90 40 min · 329 flights
  • Wednesdays77% on time · p90 40 min · 331 flights
  • Thursdays77% on time · p90 35 min · 322 flights
  • Saturdays74% on time · p90 45 min · 288 flights
  • Fridays73% on time · p90 30 min · 324 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.