Carrier performance at one airport
OH→DCA
PSA Airlines at Ronald Reagan Washington National
- Departures
- 39,988
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #10 of 10
PSA Airlines at Washington carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 39,988 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 9,505 at 78.7% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, PSA Airlines runs 6 points behind the 73.2% 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
67.7%
37,598 completed departures
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
5.71%
At DCA, this carrier only
Rank here
#10
Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at DCA
These figures cover 40,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Against the competition
Every carrier at DCA, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 78.7% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 67.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 39,988 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 9,505 | 78.7% | 90 min | 2.54% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 984 | 78.4% | 80 min | 0.91% | B+ |
| Envoy Air | 4,857 | 78.0% | 74 min | 3.77% | B− |
| United Airlines | 6,900 | 77.8% | 89 min | 1.55% | B |
| Republic Airways | 27,126 | 76.2% | 67 min | 4.33% | B− |
| American Airlines | 27,872 | 74.8% | 84 min | 2.67% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 16,065 | 74.1% | 64 min | 1.77% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,185 | 71.1% | 59 min | 1.14% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 6,699 | 69.4% | 84 min | 2.96% | C |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 39,988 | 67.7% | 79 min | 5.71% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.7% 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 | 1,433 | 64.4% | 79 min | 8.03% | D− |
| DCA to HPN · White Plains | 1,362 | 62.5% | 82 min | 6.17% | D− |
| DCA to MHT · Manchester | 1,108 | 68.5% | 68 min | 6.41% | C− |
| DCA to ALB · Albany | 1,090 | 67.3% | 87 min | 5.96% | C− |
| DCA to PVD · Providence | 1,061 | 69.6% | 68 min | 6.79% | C− |
| DCA to ATL · Atlanta | 1,055 | 68.8% | 81 min | 8.25% | C− |
| DCA to ORF · Norfolk | 1,014 | 63.3% | 75 min | 4.64% | D− |
| DCA to HSV · Huntsville | 999 | 70.4% | 78 min | 5.11% | C− |
| DCA to SAV · Savannah | 993 | 68.1% | 95 min | 4.43% | C− |
| DCA to TYS · Knoxville | 982 | 67.7% | 99 min | 3.87% | C− |
| DCA to DAY · Dayton | 965 | 64.2% | 79 min | 4.25% | D− |
| DCA to GSP · Greer | 960 | 65.2% | 86 min | 5.31% | C− |
| DCA to BDL · Hartford | 957 | 71.8% | 74 min | 5.96% | C− |
| DCA to DTW · Detroit | 957 | 69.5% | 85 min | 6.37% | C− |
| DCA to BHM · Birmingham | 953 | 70.5% | 80 min | 4.93% | C− |
| DCA to CVG · Cincinnati | 951 | 64.1% | 89 min | 3.89% | D− |
| DCA to CAE · Columbia | 926 | 66.4% | 68 min | 6.05% | C− |
| DCA to PNS · Pensacola | 910 | 66.3% | 88 min | 4.07% | C− |
| DCA to CHS · Charleston | 873 | 68.6% | 83 min | 4.35% | C− |
| DCA to BTV · Burlington | 860 | 69.2% | 84 min | 4.53% | C− |
| DCA to RDU · Raleigh | 840 | 66.8% | 64 min | 5.12% | C− |
| DCA to ROC · Rochester | 808 | 67.2% | 74 min | 5.82% | C− |
| DCA to ILM · Wilmington | 808 | 72.6% | 70 min | 6.31% | C− |
| DCA to MSN · Madison | 783 | 69.1% | 85 min | 5.49% | C− |
| DCA to BGR · Bangor | 777 | 66.9% | 76 min | 7.85% | C− |
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 28 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am2,034 flights85.4%
- 8am–11am9,528 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm6,477 flights70.3%
- 2pm–5pm7,224 flights62.3%
- 5pm–8pm5,764 flights57.0%
- 8pm–5am8,961 flights60.7%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.0% on time, against 85.4% 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 9,528 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 55.3% on time, against 79.0% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. June was the busiest month here, with 3,659 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 964,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 963,841 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.71%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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.
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
39,988 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 5.71% 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. 37,598 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.3% of the 39,988 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PSA Airlines at DCA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 78.7% on time across 9,505 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 67.7%, a gap of 11 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 85.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.0%, 28 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 December delays on PSA Airlines at DCA?
December is the weakest month at 55.3% on time, compared with 79.0% in September. Across the year that is 24 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.