Carrier route record
OHCAE→DCA
PSA Airlines · Columbia to Washington
- Flights
- 928
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 85%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on CAE to DCA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 928 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so PSA on CAE to DCA runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 74 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 864 completed flights
Avg delay
112 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.25%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.6%
Every carrier on CAE to DCA, 1,093 flights
These figures cover 928 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
PSA against every carrier on CAE to DCA
PSA flew 928 of the 1,093 flights on CAE to DCA, most of the route. Its 69.9% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 91.7% to PSA at 69.9%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 48 | 91.7% | 50 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 117 | 85.1% | 56 min | 2.56% | A |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 928 | 69.9% | 112 min | 6.25% | C− |
Flight by flight
PSA flight numbers on CAE to DCA
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 38 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am258 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am251 flights77.7%
- 11am–2pm39 flights78.4%
- 2pm–5pm74 flights64.8%
- 5pm–8pm306 flights48.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.2% on time, against 86.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 306 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on CAE to DCA through the year
February is the weak month at 57.1% on time, against 79.2% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 105 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 76.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 59.2%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late PSA on CAE to DCA runs when it is late
PSA on CAE to DCA often beats the schedule: 332 of 864 completed flights, 38%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 260 late arrivals split 57 under half an hour, 91 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 112 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early332 flights38.4%
- Within 15 min272 flights31.5%
- 15–29 min late57 flights6.6%
- 30–59 min late91 flights10.5%
- 1–2 hours late59 flights6.8%
- 2+ hours late53 flights6.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 864 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 251 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 28 made it up before arrival. 37 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for PSA on CAE to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 March 2026, 27 hours 21 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 March 2026 | 27 hours 21 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 January 2026 | 23 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 July 2026 | 21 hours 19 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 June 2026 | 20 hours 50 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 18 July 2026 | 17 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 28,997 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 86.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.25%, 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
13.0% 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 408 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 64.4% on time across 927 flights, 6 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 928 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 CAE to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.25% 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. 864 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
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.