Carrier route record
OHDCA→CAE
PSA Airlines · Washington to Columbia
- Flights
- 927
- 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 DCA to CAE carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 927 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so PSA on DCA to CAE runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 129 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
64.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 873 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.83%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
66.7%
Every carrier on DCA to CAE, 1,092 flights
These figures cover 927 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.8% 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 DCA to CAE
PSA flew 927 of the 1,092 flights on DCA to CAE, most of the route. Its 64.4% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 66.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 82.7% to PSA at 64.4%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 116 | 82.7% | 54 min | 5.17% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 49 | 72.7% | 55 min | 10.20% | C− |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 927 | 64.4% | 77 min | 5.83% | D− |
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 46 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am38 flights94.7%
- 8am–11am252 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm72 flights77.8%
- 2pm–5pm111 flights49.0%
- 5pm–8pm237 flights56.6%
- 8pm–5am217 flights56.3%
Scale runs 40% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.7% of the time, against 49.0% for the afternoon window. That is 46 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 252 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on DCA to CAE through the year
July is the worst month at 37.1% on time, 38 points below October, the best at 75.5%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 106 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 71.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 57.1%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late PSA on DCA to CAE runs when it is late
PSA on DCA to CAE often beats the schedule: 254 of 873 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 311 late arrivals split 81 under half an hour, 101 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 129 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early254 flights29.1%
- Within 15 min308 flights35.3%
- 15–29 min late81 flights9.3%
- 30–59 min late101 flights11.6%
- 1–2 hours late66 flights7.6%
- 2+ hours late63 flights7.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 873 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
52 of 328 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 35 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for PSA on DCA to CAE
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 July 2026, 10 hours 37 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 July 2026 | 10 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 November 2025 | 9 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 June 2026 | 6 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 November 2025 | 6 hours 8 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 July 2026 | 6 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 61% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
61% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 23,882 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 94.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.83%, against 1.89% 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
14.8% 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 69.9% on time across 928 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 927 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 CAE
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.83% 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. 873 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.