Carrier route record
OHCLT→IAD
PSA Airlines · Charlotte to Washington
- Flights
- 1,031
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 52%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on CLT to IAD carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,031 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 497 at 85.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate PSA on CLT to IAD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 995 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.1%
Every carrier on CLT to IAD, 1,995 flights
These figures cover 1,031 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 IAD
PSA flew 1,031 of the 1,995 flights on CLT to IAD, most of the route. Its 81.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 96.2% to American at 75.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 85.4% of the time; American Airlines manages 75.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 441 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 26 | 96.2% | 23 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 497 | 85.4% | 81 min | 3.22% | A− |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 1,031 | 81.0% | 64 min | 3.39% | B− |
| American Airlines | 441 | 75.4% | 74 min | 1.36% | B |
Republic Airways cancels 3.2% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 30 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am228 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am149 flights91.0%
- 11am–2pm290 flights86.9%
- 2pm–5pm209 flights66.5%
- 5pm–8pm102 flights66.3%
- 8pm–5am53 flights61.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.2% on time, against 91.0% for the 8am–11am 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 290 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on CLT to IAD through the year
December is the weak month at 58.9% on time, against 92.9% in June. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 143 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.1%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 12,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 15%Extreme weather
- 11%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 15% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 12,088 reported delay minutes.
38% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 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.
Cancellations run at 3.39%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
6.8% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 322 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.1% on time across 1,032 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,031 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 IAD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.39% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 995 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to IAD, every carrier
- PSA on IAD to CLT, the return leg
- Republic Airways on CLT to IAD85.4%
- American Airlines on CLT to IAD75.4%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.