Route profile
DCA→HOU
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Washington to Houston, 1,218 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 39% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 3,215 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
DCA → HOU arrives on time 77.1% of the time; the return trip, HOU → DCA, arrives on time 75.8% of the time.
DCA → HOU spends 22.9 minutes on the ground on a 1,218-mile trip: 16.0 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DCA and 6.9 minutes from touchdown to gate at HOU.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Reliability here swings unusually widely by season, a wider month-to-month spread than 96% of 3,357 comparable routes.
86.9% on time in a typical November, against 60.2% in July.
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 3,357 in the comparison.
What sets this route apart
Where DCA to HOU differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
DCA to HOU struggles most at 12 PM: 69.5% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 8.4 points behind the 77.9% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 9.9 points.
In May, DCA to HOU runs 10.8 points below routes of similar length, 63.2% on time to 74.0%. Against all other routes the gap is 12.1 points.
August is kinder to DCA to HOU than to routes of similar length: 82.2% on time against 74.9%, 7.3 points better. Against all other routes the gap is 5.7 points.
DCA to HOU against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 12 PM departures | 69.5% | routes of similar length | 77.9% | −8.4 pts | 131 here, 129,972 there |
| Month: May | 63.2% | routes of similar length | 74.0% | −10.8 pts | 261 here, 164,309 there |
| Month: August | 82.2% | routes of similar length | 74.9% | +7.3 pts | 259 here, 158,588 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 1,218 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why DCA → HOU flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DCA → HOU cancelled 56 of 3,215 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 57. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 71.4% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 80 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 56 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.
40 cancellations, 71.4% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
9 cancellations, 16.1% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
7 cancellations, 12.5% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
56 coded cancellations were recorded on DCA → HOU; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
46 min late
against a median of 5 min early
Percentiles over 3,215 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at HOU after arriving from DCA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 39% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 22% | High risk |
| 60 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.4% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.4% | Low 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 1.74% of the time and diverts 0.47% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 3,144 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 46 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 3,215 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DCA → HOU flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 90.6% of the time, against 65.3% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 25.3 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 90.7% on time from 1,069 flights
- 7 AM to 11 AM: too few flights to score
- 12 PM: 69.5% on time from 132 flights
- 1 PM: 73.7% on time from 779 flights
- 2 PM to 5 PM: too few flights to score
- 6 PM: 62.9% on time from 591 flights
- 7 PM: 68.9% on time from 391 flights
- 8 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why DCA → HOU 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 → HOU. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DCA → HOU, at 49.8%: 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 6–9 PM departures 65.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 3,215 | 77.1% | 1.74% | -5 min | 7.5% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 8.3 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 79.8%
- Feb: 84.1%
- Mar: 78.3%
- Apr: 80.9%
- May: 63.2%
- Jun: 68.5%
- Jul: 60.2%
- Aug: 82.2%
- Sep: 82.8%
- Oct: 82.6%
- Nov: 86.9%
- Dec: 82.6%
July is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 26.7 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 76.7% against 79.0% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.3 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 3,215 DCA → HOU 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