Carrier route record
OHBDL→DCA
PSA Airlines · Hartford to Washington
- Flights
- 986
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 59%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on BDL to DCA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 8.0% 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 986 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so PSA on BDL to DCA runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 98 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 906 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
8.01%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
68.4%
Every carrier on BDL to DCA, 1,681 flights
These figures cover 986 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
PSA against every carrier on BDL to DCA
PSA flew 986 of the 1,681 flights on BDL to DCA, most of the route. Its 67.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 68.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 73.6% to Envoy at 50.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 403 | 73.6% | 65 min | 2.23% | C |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 986 | 67.5% | 90 min | 8.01% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 284 | 64.2% | 94 min | 5.63% | D− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 8 | 50.0% | 26 min | 12.50% | F− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When PSA runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 45 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am177 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am283 flights74.8%
- 11am–2pm196 flights68.3%
- 2pm–5pm106 flights52.1%
- 5pm–8pm224 flights45.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 35% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 45.0% on time, against 89.8% 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 283 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on BDL to DCA through the year
August is the worst month at 54.8% on time, 27 points below March, the best at 81.5%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 115 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 75.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.5%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late PSA on BDL to DCA runs when it is late
PSA on BDL to DCA often beats the schedule: 317 of 906 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 294 late arrivals split 81 under half an hour, 82 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 131 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early317 flights35.0%
- Within 15 min295 flights32.6%
- 15–29 min late81 flights8.9%
- 30–59 min late82 flights9.1%
- 1–2 hours late71 flights7.8%
- 2+ hours late60 flights6.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 906 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 248 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 26 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 72 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for PSA on BDL to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 August 2026, 22 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 9 August 2026 | 22 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 January 2026 | 22 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 August 2026 | 18 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 June 2026 | 11 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 March 2026 | 9 hours 6 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 26,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 3%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 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 26,473 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 8.01%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twelve 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 stage length
What a delay here costs
14.5% 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.
At 313 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 67.8% on time across 984 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 986 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 PSA on BDL to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 8.01% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 906 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BDL to DCA, every carrier
- PSA on DCA to BDL, the return leg
- Republic Airways on BDL to DCA73.6%
- American Airlines on BDL to DCA64.2%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.