Route profile
DCA→DTW
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Washington to Detroit, 405 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 21% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 8,647 flights. How this is calculated
DCA → DTW arrives on time 78.6% of the time; the return trip, DTW → DCA, arrives on time 74.3% of the time, a 4.4-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DCA → DTW spends 28.6 minutes on the ground on a 405-mile trip: 19.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DCA and 9.3 minutes from touchdown to gate at DTW.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route has stayed remarkably steady year over year, a smaller swing than 97% of 5,368 comparable routes.
76.0% on time over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), against 76.2% in the 12 months before (2024-08 to 2025-07), virtually unchanged.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 5,368 in the comparison.
Why DCA → DTW flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DCA → DTW cancelled 251 of 8,647 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 34. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 59.8% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 58 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 251 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
150 cancellations, 59.8% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
62 cancellations, 24.7% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
37 cancellations, 14.7% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
2 cancellations, 0.8% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
251 coded cancellations were recorded on DCA → DTW; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
54 min late
against a median of 9 min early
DCA → DTW has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 9 min early, but the worst tenth are 63 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 8,647 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at DTW after arriving from DCA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 33% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 21% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | High risk |
| 90 min | 8.9% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.8% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 2.90% of the time and diverts 0.09% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 8,388 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 54 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 8,647 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DCA → DTW flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 90.6% of the time, against 69.1% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 21.5 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 93.8% on time from 1,128 flights
- 7 AM: 87.6% on time from 735 flights
- 8 AM: 82.3% on time from 170 flights
- 9 AM: 88.0% on time from 654 flights
- 10 AM: 83.9% on time from 541 flights
- 11 AM: too few flights to score
- 12 PM: 84.0% on time from 1,068 flights
- 1 PM: 80.2% on time from 133 flights
- 2 PM: 65.5% on time from 491 flights
- 3 PM: 81.7% on time from 399 flights
- 4 PM: too few flights to score
- 5 PM: 63.4% on time from 929 flights
- 6 PM: 71.4% on time from 276 flights
- 7 PM: 65.9% on time from 414 flights
- 8 PM: 70.1% on time from 806 flights
- 9 PM: too few flights to score
- 10 PM: 71.0% on time from 646 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DCA → DTW runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DCA → DTW. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DCA → DTW, at 51.4%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 90.6% of the time and 3–6 PM departures 69.1%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 5,244 | 80.3% | 1.93% | -10 min | 8.2% |
| PSA Airlines | 2,665 | 73.9% | 4.80% | -7 min | 11.5% |
| Republic Airways | 646 | 82.5% | 3.25% | -10 min | 5.9% |
Delta Air Lines flew 61.3% of the 8,555 flights listed. PSA Airlines cancelled 4.80% of its flights here against 1.93% for Delta Air Lines.
Republic Airways arrived on time 8.6 percentage points more often than PSA Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL2869 Delta Air Lines | 6:00 AM | 773 | 94.3% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 8.6 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 74.5%
- Feb: 77.7%
- Mar: 78.2%
- Apr: 79.5%
- May: 77.0%
- Jun: 72.0%
- Jul: 67.5%
- Aug: 79.1%
- Sep: 87.1%
- Oct: 89.7%
- Nov: 84.8%
- Dec: 78.3%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 22.2 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 68.4% from 235 flights
- August 2023: 80.6% from 240 flights
- September 2023: 88.2% from 230 flights
- October 2023: 92.3% from 233 flights
- November 2023: 92.7% from 221 flights
- December 2023: 92.6% from 217 flights
- January 2024: 75.9% from 222 flights
- February 2024: 94.0% from 216 flights
- March 2024: 85.7% from 230 flights
- April 2024: 81.9% from 227 flights
- May 2024: 78.4% from 232 flights
- June 2024: 76.0% from 220 flights
- July 2024: 73.5% from 231 flights
- August 2024: 74.5% from 229 flights
- September 2024: 85.8% from 227 flights
- October 2024: 89.1% from 230 flights
- November 2024: 90.8% from 220 flights
- December 2024: 75.5% from 221 flights
- January 2025: 75.6% from 228 flights
- February 2025: 62.8% from 208 flights
- March 2025: 75.7% from 226 flights
- April 2025: 78.4% from 224 flights
- May 2025: 72.4% from 238 flights
- June 2025: 66.7% from 227 flights
- July 2025: 66.7% from 239 flights
- August 2025: 82.0% from 233 flights
- September 2025: 87.4% from 247 flights
- October 2025: 88.0% from 258 flights
- November 2025: 72.1% from 253 flights
- December 2025: 67.4% from 238 flights
- January 2026: 72.2% from 249 flights
- February 2026: 75.2% from 240 flights
- March 2026: 73.5% from 271 flights
- April 2026: 78.2% from 262 flights
- May 2026: 79.8% from 257 flights
- June 2026: 73.1% from 232 flights
- July 2026: 61.6% from 236 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 76.0% against 76.2% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 8,647 DCA → DTW flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed