Carrier route record

OHBUF→DCA

PSA Airlines · Buffalo to Washington

Flights: 728
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 63%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.

PSA on BUF to DCA draws a D−. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is close to two hours behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 728 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on BUF to DCA runs 14 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 145 extra late arrivals.

On time

63.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 683 completed flights

Avg delay

122 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

6.18%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

65.1%

Every carrier on BUF to DCA, 1,162 flights

These figures cover 728 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 17.7% 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.

Carrier by carrier

PSA against every carrier on BUF to DCA

PSA flew 728 of the 1,162 flights on BUF to DCA, most of the route. Its 63.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 65.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 100.0% to Envoy at 53.4%. Three 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.

On-time performance by carrier on BUF to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlinesthin sample	6	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Republic Airwaysthin sample	264	76.1%	66 min	1.89%	B
PSA Airlines (this page)	728	63.1%	122 min	6.18%	D−
Envoy Airthin sample	164	53.4%	72 min	9.15%	F−

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 39 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am156 flights87.1%
8am–11am—
11am–2pm323 flights59.1%
2pm–5pm103 flights59.6%
5pm–8pm146 flights48.1%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.1% on time, against 87.1% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 323 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

PSA on BUF to DCA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, November worst

September is the best month on the calendar at 78.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 96 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 66.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 53.8%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why PSA runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 31,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
54%
National Airspace System
22%
Carrier
22%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
0%

54% 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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 27 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 30,606 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 87.1% on time here.

Cancellations run at 6.18%, against 1.81% 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.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 17.7% 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.

At 296 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 64.6% on time across 729 flights, within about 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. 728 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 BUF to DCA

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.18% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 683 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures