OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Houston to Washington

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

Flights on HOU–DCA arrive on time 68% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate68%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay55 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled1.2%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-time68%
    Medianon time
    p9055 min
    Cancel1.2%
    Flights1,056

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline24%
  • Weather5%
  • Air traffic (NAS)39%
  • Late aircraft33%
  • Security0%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Air traffic (NAS).

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly HOU → DCA

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 — 93% on time.

  • Mornings93% on time · p90 10 min · 1,005 flights
  • Middays75% on time · p90 40 min · 1,003 flights
  • Afternoons72% on time · p90 55 min · 69 flights · limited
  • Evenings64% on time · p90 60 min · 1,030 flights

Best day of week

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

  • Tuesdays81% on time · p90 30 min · 471 flights
  • Mondays79% on time · p90 40 min · 471 flights
  • Saturdays78% on time · p90 40 min · 325 flights
  • Thursdays77% on time · p90 45 min · 465 flights
  • Wednesdays77% on time · p90 40 min · 471 flights
  • Sundays75% on time · p90 35 min · 444 flights
  • Fridays73% on time · p90 45 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.