Route profile
DCA→RSW
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Washington to Fort Myers, 892 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 28% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 2,622 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
DCA → RSW arrives on time 77.3% of the time; the return trip, RSW → DCA, arrives on time 73.5% of the time, a 3.8-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DCA → RSW spends 27.8 minutes on the ground on an 892-mile trip: 22.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DCA and 5.6 minutes from touchdown to gate at RSW.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where DCA to RSW differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
DCA to RSW struggles most at 10 AM: 73.7% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 9.5 points behind the 83.2% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 9 points.
American Airlines does better on DCA to RSW than on its routes of similar length: 76.9% on time here, 73.9% there, 3 points apart.
DCA to RSW against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 10 AM departures | 73.7% | routes of similar length | 83.2% | −9.5 pts | 319 here, 168,262 there |
| Airline: American Airlines | 76.9% | routes of similar length | 73.9% | +3.0 pts | 1,683 here, 464,701 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 892 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 → RSW flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DCA → RSW cancelled 62 of 2,622 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 42. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 66.1% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 64 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 62 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.
41 cancellations, 66.1% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
11 cancellations, 17.7% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
10 cancellations, 16.1% 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.
62 coded cancellations were recorded on DCA → RSW; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
49 min late
against a median of 7 min early
Percentiles over 2,622 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at RSW after arriving from DCA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 37% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 22% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 8.3% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.5% | 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 2.36% of the time and diverts 0.61% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 2,544 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 49 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 2,622 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DCA → RSW flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 82.3% of the time, against 66.7% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 15.6 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 91.8% on time from 166 flights
- 7 AM: 89.4% on time from 239 flights
- 8 AM: 77.8% on time from 729 flights
- 9 AM: 80.6% on time from 237 flights
- 10 AM: 73.7% on time from 330 flights
- 11 AM: 89.7% on time from 120 flights
- 12 PM to 1 PM: too few flights to score
- 2 PM: 67.4% on time from 197 flights
- 3 PM: 66.7% on time from 430 flights
- 4 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DCA → RSW 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 → RSW. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DCA → RSW, at 50.7%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 82.3% of the time and 3–6 PM departures 66.7%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,732 | 76.9% | 2.19% | -7 min | 7.7% |
| JetBlue | 435 | 81.0% | 2.30% | -13 min | 10.5% |
American Airlines flew 79.9% of the 2,167 flights listed.
JetBlue arrived on time 4.1 percentage points more often than American Airlines on this route.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 8.2 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 75.4%
- Feb: 76.8%
- Mar: 72.6%
- Apr: 82.1%
- May: 79.8%
- Jun: 76.5%
- Jul: 72.8%
- Aug: 75.8%
- Sep: 76.4%
- Oct: 79.9%
- Nov: 86.7%
- Dec: 75.7%
March is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 14.1 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.7% against 78.5% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.8 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 2,622 DCA → RSW 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