Carrier route record
OHCLT→DSM
PSA Airlines · Charlotte to Des Moines
- Flights
- 188
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 23%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on CLT to DSM lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 188 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate PSA on CLT to DSM from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 177 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.5%
Every carrier on CLT to DSM, 809 flights
These figures cover 188 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
Carrier by carrier
PSA against every carrier on CLT to DSM
PSA flew 188 of the 809 flights on CLT to DSM, about 23% of it. Its 77.4% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 77.4% to American at 72.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines (this page)thin sample | 188 | 77.4% | 74 min | 5.85% | B− |
| American Airlines | 621 | 72.3% | 70 min | 1.93% | C |
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 20 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–8am—
- 8am–11am46 flights91.3%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm55 flights76.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am86 flights71.2%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.3% of the time, against 71.2% for the overnight window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 86 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on CLT to DSM through the year
- Jul–Sep 202523 flights—
- Oct–Dec 2025155 flights75.3%
- Jan–Mar 202610 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 77.4% on time across 188 flights.
Split by quarter, PSA on CLT to DSM logged 23 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 155 flights in Oct–Dec 2025 and 10 flights in Jan–Mar 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 77.4% annual figure is the one to use.
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 2,959 reported delay minutes.
- 33%Carrier
- 31%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.3% on time here. The split is drawn from 2,959 reported delay minutes.
No single cause dominates. carrier at 33%, national airspace system at 31% and late-arriving aircraft at 29% split the 2,959 reported delay minutes between them. An even spread like this usually means the operation is running close to its designed capacity with no one obvious weak point, and it is the hardest pattern for a traveller to route around.
Cancellations run at 5.85%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
5.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 815 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.3% on time across 188 flights, 7 points above 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 188 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 CLT to DSM
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.85% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 177 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.