OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Houston to Washington

1,208 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on IAH–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)
Cancelled1.5%of scheduled flights

based on 2,667 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

Too close to call — no single carrier is clearly more on-time here.

  • Republic Airways
    On-time73%
    Medianon time
    p9050 min
    Cancel3.0%
    Flights305
  • United Airlines
    On-time72%
    Medianon time
    p9060 min
    Cancel1.4%
    Flights2,362

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline19%
  • Weather7%
  • Air traffic (NAS)37%
  • Late aircraft36%
  • 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 IAH → 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 — 86% on time.

  • Mornings86% on time · p90 20 min · 1,948 flights
  • Middays77% on time · p90 40 min · 1,203 flights
  • Afternoons71% on time · p90 60 min · 1,911 flights
  • Evenings68% on time · p90 65 min · 1,804 flights

Best day of week

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

  • Tuesdays79% on time · p90 40 min · 1,060 flights
  • Saturdays77% on time · p90 45 min · 674 flights
  • Wednesdays77% on time · p90 50 min · 1,057 flights
  • Mondays75% on time · p90 40 min · 1,059 flights
  • Thursdays73% on time · p90 50 min · 1,037 flights
  • Sundays73% on time · p90 55 min · 975 flights
  • Fridays73% on time · p90 55 min · 1,033 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.