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DCA vs ATL - Airport Comparison

Select two airports to compare on-time performance, delays, cancellations, and top routes using U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data (2020–2025) across all 50 states. See our methodology for how metrics are computed.

Airport A
DCA

Washington, DC

Washington, Virginia

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Airport B
ATL

Atlanta, GA

Atlanta, Georgia

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Key Performance Metrics

BTS on-time performance data, 2020–2025 cumulative.

Metric DCA ATL
On-Time Rate (higher is better) 80.8% 83.7%
Avg Delay (lower is better) 79.6 min 72.9 min
Delay Rate (lower is better) 19.2% 16.3%
Cancellation Rate (lower is better) 1.52% 0.79%
Total Flights 1,425,060 3,758,561
Delayed Flights 274,313 613,025
Cancelled Flights 21,697 29,771
Top Delay Cause Late Aircraft Carrier

✓ / ▲ indicates the more favorable value. Data: BTS On-Time Performance, 2020–2025.

Delay Cause Breakdown

DCA - Washington, DC

Late Aircraft 46.4%
Carrier 28.7%
NAS 19.7%
Weather 5.0%
Security 0.2%

ATL - Atlanta, GA

Carrier 46.8%
Late Aircraft 27.2%
NAS 19.4%
Weather 6.4%
Security 0.2%

Top Routes

Top routes from DCA

Route Flights On-Time
BOS → DCA
Washington
49,205 81.6%
DCA → BOS
Boston
49,133 80.5%
ATL → DCA
Washington
35,757 79.9%
DCA → ATL
Atlanta
35,728 83.9%
ORD → DCA
Washington
33,643 79%
DCA → ORD
Chicago
33,634 83.8%

Top routes from ATL

Route Flights On-Time
MCO → ATL
Atlanta
47,291 78.1%
ATL → MCO
Orlando
47,234 76.2%
FLL → ATL
Atlanta
42,458 77.5%
ATL → FLL
Fort Lauderdale
42,441 77.2%
ATL → LGA
New York
42,079 80.8%
LGA → ATL
Atlanta
42,078 82.2%

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), On-Time Performance Data (2020–2025) On-time rates exclude cancelled and diverted flights. PlainFlights is not affiliated with BTS or the DOT

Every figure on PlainFlights is rendered directly from BTS On-Time Performance data, no number is typed in by an editor. This tool queries live on-time, delay, and cancellation figures for the two selected airports from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.