Carrier route record
OHDCA→CLE
PSA Airlines · Washington to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,433
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 89%
- 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 CLE carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 8.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 1,433 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on DCA to CLE runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 132 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
64.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,315 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
8.03%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
67.1%
Every carrier on DCA to CLE, 1,608 flights
These figures cover 1,433 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.5% 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 CLE
PSA flew 1,433 of the 1,608 flights on DCA to CLE, most of the route. Its 64.4% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 67.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 88.9% to PSA at 64.4%. Three 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 | 19 | 88.9% | 19 min | 5.26% | A− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 149 | 87.7% | 33 min | 2.01% | A |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 85.7% | 18 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 1,433 | 64.4% | 79 min | 8.03% | 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 44 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–8am167 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am152 flights79.9%
- 11am–2pm251 flights68.7%
- 2pm–5pm242 flights58.8%
- 5pm–8pm318 flights48.2%
- 8pm–5am303 flights57.1%
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.2% on time, against 92.6% 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 318 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on DCA to CLE through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 82.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 137 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 69.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 53.2%. 16 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 53% of the 37,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
53% 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 37,000 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 36,882 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 92.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 8.03%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twelve 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. 15.5% 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 310 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 66.6% on time across 1,434 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,433 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking PSA on DCA to CLE
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 8.03% 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. 1,315 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to CLE, every carrier
- PSA on CLE to DCA, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DCA to CLE87.7%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) 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.