Route profile
SLC→DCA
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Salt Lake City to Washington, 1,851 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 95% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 1,126 flights. How this is calculated
SLC → DCA arrives on time 85.0% of the time; the return trip, DCA → SLC, arrives on time 79.5% of the time, a 5.5-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
SLC → DCA spends 26.1 minutes on the ground on a 1,851-mile trip: 19.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SLC and 6.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at DCA.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route stays close to typical even on its worst days, a smaller gap than 91% of 4,598 comparable routes.
A typical arrival is 8 min early, and the worst tenth are only 31 minutes worse than that.
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 4,598 in the comparison.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
23 min late
against a median of 8 min early
Percentiles over 1,126 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at DCA after arriving from SLC.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 33% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 14% | Some risk |
| 60 min | 8.0% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 2.8% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 1.4% | 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 0.80% of the time and diverts 1.33% 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 23 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 1,126 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Why SLC → DCA runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s 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 SLC → DCA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
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 | 1,126 | 85.0% | 0.80% | -8 min | 2.9% |
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| DL820 Delta Air Lines | 9:55 AM | 784 | 83.3% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 12.1 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 84.2% against 82.0% in the 12 months before — improving by 2.2 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,126 SLC → DCA 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