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DCA vs BOS - 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
BOS

Boston, MA

Boston, Massachusetts

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Key Performance Metrics

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

Metric DCA BOS
On-Time Rate (higher is better) 80.8% 79.9%
Avg Delay (lower is better) 79.6 min 78.3 min
Delay Rate (lower is better) 19.2% 20.1%
Cancellation Rate (lower is better) 1.52% 1.19%
Total Flights 1,425,060 1,455,478
Delayed Flights 274,313 292,211
Cancelled Flights 21,697 17,391
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%

BOS - Boston, MA

Carrier 37.1%
Late Aircraft 34.4%
NAS 25.0%
Weather 3.4%
Security 0.1%

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 BOS

Route Flights On-Time
BOS → DCA
Washington
49,205 81.6%
DCA → BOS
Boston
49,133 80.5%
LGA → BOS
Boston
39,006 82.4%
BOS → LGA
New York
38,931 83.4%
BOS → ORD
Chicago
35,774 82.1%
ORD → BOS
Boston
35,759 78.5%

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.