Flight number record
OH 5603
PSA Airlines · Columbia to Washington
- Route
- CAE → DCA
- Departs
- 06:00
- Flights
- 278
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s OH 5603, check with PSA Airlines. PSA Airlines flies under contract for larger airlines, so a ticket for this flight may show a different airline code and number.
OH 5603 earns an A−. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 3.5 hours. That rests on 278 flights, with a median arrival 18 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, OH 5603's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 87 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 262 completed flights
Avg delay
209 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.40%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
6.5%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 278 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 18 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Schedule
When OH 5603 flies
OH 5603 flies CAE to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:00, used on 143 of 278 flights, with 06:48 (38 flights) and 07:00 (35 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 06:00143 flights51.4%
- Departs 06:4838 flights13.7%
- Departs 07:0035 flights12.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 06:00 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and OH 5603 runs 3 points worse at 86.3%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
Against the route
OH 5603 next to CAE to DCA
Every carrier on CAE to DCA combined arrived on time 72.9% of the time across 1,093 flights, so OH 5603 is 13 points ahead of it. PSA flew 927 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 70.9% on time. Across its whole network PSA Airlines managed 74.6%, which this flight beats by 12 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OH 5603thin sample | 278 | 86.3% | 209 min | 5.40% | A− |
| All PSA Airlines on CAE–DCA | 927 | 70.9% | 102 min | 6.36% | C− |
| All carriers on CAE–DCA | 1,093 | 72.9% | 98 min | 5.67% | C− |
| PSA Airlines, whole network | 241,957 | 74.6% | 94 min | 4.34% | C− |
Across the year
OH 5603 quarter by quarter
OH 5603 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 91.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 80.0%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 70 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202551 flights91.3%
- Oct–Dec 202586 flights87.1%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights80.0%
- Apr–Jun 202651 flights90.2%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, OH 5603 did best on Wednesday at 92.7% on time and worst on Saturday at 76.7%. Each day rests on about 40 flights, so a gap of 16 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why OH 5603 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 68% of the 7,523 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 68%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 68%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 5,151 of the 7,523 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,523 delay minutes reported on OH 5603.
Cancellations run at 5.40%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
6.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 3.5 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including BTR to DFW (6) and BHM to DFW (5), but none flew often enough under OH 5603 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to CAE to DCA only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 278 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking OH 5603
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on OH 5603: 5.40% of its 278 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 3.5 hours, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- CAE to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to CAE, the return direction
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on-time record
- Every PSA Airlines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
A flight number here means PSA Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.