Carrier performance at one airport
OH→DCA
PSA Airlines at Ronald Reagan Washington National
- Departures
- 40,071
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #10 of 10
PSA Airlines at Washington carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 40,071 flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 983 at 78.1% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, PSA Airlines runs 6 points behind the 72.1% weighted average across all carriers at DCA. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
65.9%
37,398 completed departures
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
6.39%
At DCA, this carrier only
Rank here
#10
Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at DCA
These figures cover 40,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Against the competition
Every carrier at DCA, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Frontier Airlines arrives on time 78.1% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 65.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 40,071 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 983 | 78.1% | 81 min | 1.02% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 9,579 | 77.9% | 88 min | 2.47% | B |
| United Airlines | 6,887 | 77.6% | 84 min | 1.63% | B |
| Envoy Air | 4,875 | 76.9% | 69 min | 3.20% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 27,158 | 75.0% | 69 min | 4.51% | B− |
| American Airlines | 27,638 | 74.7% | 84 min | 2.57% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 16,026 | 72.7% | 63 min | 2.23% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,182 | 71.9% | 56 min | 1.01% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 6,726 | 67.6% | 83 min | 4.07% | C− |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 40,071 | 65.9% | 82 min | 6.39% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where PSA Airlines flies from DCA
PSA Airlines operates 25 routes out of DCA with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCA to CLE · Cleveland | 1,402 | 61.9% | 81 min | 8.84% | D− |
| DCA to HPN · White Plains | 1,354 | 61.6% | 89 min | 7.31% | D− |
| DCA to ATL · Atlanta | 1,079 | 65.6% | 81 min | 9.27% | C− |
| DCA to PVD · Providence | 1,062 | 69.0% | 72 min | 7.16% | C− |
| DCA to MHT · Manchester | 1,057 | 65.3% | 70 min | 7.10% | C− |
| DCA to ORF · Norfolk | 1,037 | 62.4% | 76 min | 4.82% | D− |
| DCA to ALB · Albany | 1,037 | 65.0% | 85 min | 6.36% | C− |
| DCA to TYS · Knoxville | 1,019 | 65.6% | 97 min | 3.93% | C− |
| DCA to BDL · Hartford | 984 | 67.8% | 78 min | 8.13% | C− |
| DCA to BHM · Birmingham | 976 | 68.6% | 84 min | 5.23% | C− |
| DCA to SAV · Savannah | 969 | 66.5% | 94 min | 5.16% | C− |
| DCA to DAY · Dayton | 956 | 63.2% | 88 min | 3.66% | D− |
| DCA to CVG · Cincinnati | 954 | 63.9% | 89 min | 4.51% | D− |
| DCA to DTW · Detroit | 948 | 67.8% | 80 min | 6.33% | C− |
| DCA to GSP · Greer | 947 | 63.0% | 90 min | 5.39% | D− |
| DCA to PNS · Pensacola | 942 | 64.5% | 85 min | 4.25% | D− |
| DCA to HSV · Huntsville | 935 | 69.4% | 80 min | 4.71% | C− |
| DCA to CAE · Columbia | 927 | 64.4% | 77 min | 5.83% | D− |
| DCA to RDU · Raleigh | 897 | 63.7% | 70 min | 6.69% | D− |
| DCA to CHS · Charleston | 862 | 66.0% | 77 min | 4.41% | C− |
| DCA to BGR · Bangor | 861 | 65.1% | 80 min | 8.71% | C− |
| DCA to MSN · Madison | 859 | 66.5% | 88 min | 7.45% | C− |
| DCA to BTV · Burlington | 832 | 65.5% | 86 min | 6.13% | C− |
| DCA to ROC · Rochester | 820 | 64.9% | 77 min | 6.46% | D− |
| DCA to ILM · Wilmington | 788 | 72.2% | 76 min | 7.36% | C− |
Flight by flight
PSA Airlines flight numbers from DCA
9 PSA Airlines flight numbers leaving DCA flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am2,097 flights85.3%
- 8am–11am9,549 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm6,386 flights68.5%
- 2pm–5pm7,345 flights60.0%
- 5pm–8pm5,767 flights55.2%
- 8pm–5am8,927 flights58.9%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.2% on time, against 85.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 9,549 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 53.4% on time, 26 points below September, the best at 79.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. June was the busiest month here, with 3,659 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 1.04 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 1,041,528 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 6.39%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
15.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
40,071 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.39% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 37,398 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PSA Airlines at DCA
How often is PSA Airlines at DCA delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 34.1% of the 40,071 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PSA Airlines at DCA?
Frontier Airlines leads at 78.1% on time across 983 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 65.9%, a gap of 12 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PSA Airlines at DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.2%, 30 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on PSA Airlines at DCA?
July is the weakest month at 53.4% on time, compared with 79.0% in September. Across the year that is 26 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.