Route profile
ORF→IAD
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Norfolk to Washington. · 157 miles
Right now
Current conditions at both ends of this route.
FlyerIntel does not currently have live operational data for this airport.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Airport conditions describe the airfield, not any individual flight. An airport operating normally is not a guarantee that a specific flight will depart on time.
Route reliability
July 2023 – June 2026
Better than 83% of comparable major US routes (4,577 compared)
Calculated from 1,982 flights. How this is calculated
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – June 2026
Best time to fly
On-time arrival rate by scheduled local departure time.
ORF → IAD flights departing 12–3 PM arrived on time 89.8% of the time, against 69.6% for 3–6 PM departures — a gap of 20.2 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – June 2026 · Buckets with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why ORF → IAD runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this route.
crew, maintenance, boarding, fuelling — within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for ORF → IAD. A single late flight can carry more than one cause, and only delays of fifteen minutes or more are attributed at all.
A route inherits the problems of both ends and of the aircraft flying it. A large share attributed to late-arriving aircraft usually means the departure sits late in a busy rotation rather than that anything about this city pair is difficult, which is why the same route often performs very differently at different times of day.
Airlines on this route
Performance by the carrier that actually operated the flight.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,182 | 89.0% | 1.44% | -12 min | 3.9% |
| Republic Airways | 800 | 85.6% | 2.88% | -13 min | 4.3% |
United Airlines arrived on time 3.4 percentage points more often than Republic Airways on this route.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – June 2026 · Carriers with fewer than 200 flights on this route are not listed.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 7.5 percentage points.
By month
July is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 10.9 percentage points.
Historical trend
On-time arrival rate by month.
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-07 to 2026-06), on-time arrivals averaged 90.0% against 87.7% in the 12 months before — improving by 2.3 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – June 2026
Data and methodology
All figures on this page are calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,982 ORF → IAD flight records published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – June 2026. A flight is counted as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after its scheduled arrival time, following BTS methodology. Cancelled and diverted flights have no arrival time and are excluded from on-time rates rather than counted as late.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
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