Carrier route record
OHDCA→BDL
PSA Airlines · Washington to Hartford
- Flights
- 957
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 55%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on DCA to BDL carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 957 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on DCA to BDL runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 58 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 900 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.96%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.2%
Every carrier on DCA to BDL, 1,735 flights
These figures cover 957 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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 DCA to BDL
PSA flew 957 of the 1,735 flights on DCA to BDL, most of the route. Its 71.8% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 73.3% to American at 61.3%. 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 | 39 | 73.3% | 53 min | 23.08% | C− |
| Republic Airways | 415 | 73.1% | 59 min | 3.37% | C− |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 957 | 71.8% | 74 min | 5.96% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 324 | 61.3% | 76 min | 5.56% | D− |
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 28 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–8am258 flights81.6%
- 8am–11am258 flights81.2%
- 11am–2pm97 flights74.7%
- 2pm–5pm78 flights58.4%
- 5pm–8pm109 flights53.5%
- 8pm–5am157 flights56.1%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.5% on time, against 81.6% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 258 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on DCA to BDL through the year
December is the weak month at 50.6% on time, against 80.2% in August. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 108 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 76.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.4%. 14 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 58% of the 19,000 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.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
58% 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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 18,866 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 81.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.96%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.9% 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 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 70.2% on time across 958 flights, within 2 points 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. 957 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 DCA to BDL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.96% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 900 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to BDL, every carrier
- PSA on BDL to DCA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on DCA to BDL73.1%
- American Airlines on DCA to BDL61.3%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.