OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

St. Louis to Washington

719 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

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

On-time rate68%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay60 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled3.2%of scheduled flights

based on 2,168 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • Republic Airwaysbest
    On-time79%
    Medianon time
    p9035 min
    Cancel3.3%
    Flights120
  • American Airlines
    On-time67%
    Medianon time
    p9065 min
    Cancel1.9%
    Flights257
  • Southwest Airlines
    On-time68%
    Medianon time
    p9060 min
    Cancel2.0%
    Flights1,399
  • PSA Airlines
    On-time68%
    Medianon time
    p9065 min
    Cancel8.2%
    Flights392

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline26%
  • Weather3%
  • Air traffic (NAS)30%
  • Late aircraft41%
  • 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 STL → 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 — 87% on time.

  • Mornings87% on time · p90 15 min · 2,776 flights
  • Middays75% on time · p90 35 min · 1,285 flights
  • Afternoons71% on time · p90 45 min · 1,206 flights
  • Overnights67% on time · p90 45 min · 243 flights
  • Evenings62% on time · p90 80 min · 1,500 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 71% to 82% on time.

  • Saturdays82% on time · p90 30 min · 673 flights
  • Tuesdays79% on time · p90 35 min · 1,091 flights
  • Wednesdays78% on time · p90 35 min · 1,092 flights
  • Mondays74% on time · p90 40 min · 1,092 flights
  • Thursdays74% on time · p90 45 min · 1,071 flights
  • Fridays74% on time · p90 40 min · 1,079 flights
  • Sundays71% on time · p90 50 min · 912 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.