PlainFlights

DCA vs PBI - 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
PBI

West Palm Beach/Palm Beach, FL

West Palm Beach/Palm Beach, Florida

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Key Performance Metrics

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

Metric DCA PBI
On-Time Rate (higher is better) 80.8% 76.9%
Avg Delay (lower is better) 79.6 min 78.7 min
Delay Rate (lower is better) 19.2% 23.1%
Cancellation Rate (lower is better) 1.52% 1.32%
Total Flights 1,425,060 302,058
Delayed Flights 274,313 69,881
Cancelled Flights 21,697 3,995
Top Delay Cause Late Aircraft Late Aircraft

✓ / ▲ 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%

PBI - West Palm Beach/Palm Beach, FL

Late Aircraft 47.4%
Carrier 28.4%
NAS 20.9%
Weather 3.2%
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 PBI

Route Flights On-Time
ATL → PBI
West Palm Beach/Palm Beach
21,790 79.6%
PBI → ATL
Atlanta
21,779 85.7%
EWR → PBI
West Palm Beach/Palm Beach
17,961 74.9%
PBI → EWR
Newark
17,955 75.1%
LGA → PBI
West Palm Beach/Palm Beach
13,596 73.4%
PBI → LGA
New York
13,595 76.9%

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.