Route profile
DCA→SJU
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Washington to San Juan, 1,554 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 32% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 1,126 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
DCA → SJU arrives on time 76.5% of the time; the return trip, SJU → DCA, arrives on time 66.8% of the time, a 9.7-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DCA → SJU spends 26.7 minutes on the ground on a 1,554-mile trip: 20.6 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DCA and 6.1 minutes from touchdown to gate at SJU.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where DCA to SJU differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
DCA to SJU struggles most at 8 AM: 76.5% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 9 points behind the 85.5% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 9.4 points.
JetBlue does better on DCA to SJU than on its routes of similar length: 76.5% on time here, 69.2% there, 7.3 points apart. Against all other routes the gap is 4.3 points.
DCA to SJU against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 8 AM departures | 76.5% | routes of similar length | 85.5% | −9.0 pts | 1,102 here, 117,912 there |
| Airline: JetBlue | 76.5% | routes of similar length | 69.2% | +7.3 pts | 1,102 here, 50,941 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 1,554 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.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
55 min late
against a median of 8 min early
DCA → SJU has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 8 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 1,126 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at SJU after arriving from DCA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 36% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 23% | High risk |
| 60 min | 17% | High risk |
| 90 min | 9.3% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.4% | 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 1.33% of the time and diverts 0.80% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 1,102 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 55 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 1,126 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Why DCA → SJU runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DCA → SJU. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue | 1,126 | 76.5% | 1.33% | -8 min | 9.3% |
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| B61347 JetBlue | 8:00 AM | 1,126 | 76.5% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 10.2 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 73.1% against 80.5% in the 12 months before — declining by 7.4 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,126 DCA → SJU 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