Carrier route record

OHDCA→CMH

PSA Airlines · Washington to Columbus

Flights: 419
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 20%
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 CMH sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 419 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on DCA to CMH runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 64 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 396 completed flights

Avg delay

68 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

5.49%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.8%

Every carrier on DCA to CMH, 2,056 flights

These figures cover 419 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% 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 CMH

PSA flew 419 of the 2,056 flights on DCA to CMH, about 20% of it. Its 71.2% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 80.7% to PSA at 71.2%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to CMH
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways	970	80.7%	66 min	2.68%	B
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	351	80.4%	68 min	0.28%	B+
Envoy Airthin sample	316	74.5%	95 min	5.70%	C−
PSA Airlines (this page)	419	71.2%	68 min	5.49%	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 19 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–8am29 flights—
8am–11am105 flights78.6%
11am–2pm160 flights72.4%
2pm–5pm87 flights59.8%
5pm–8pm6 flights—
8pm–5am32 flights—

Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 78.6% of the time, against 59.8% for the afternoon window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 160 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

PSA on DCA to CMH through the year

Jul–Sep 2025170 flights71.8%
Oct–Dec 202588 flights66.7%
Jan–Mar 202682 flights67.1%
Apr–Jun 202679 flights78.9%

Scale runs 60% to 85%. 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 71.2% on time across 419 flights.

PSA on DCA to CMH did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 78.9% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 66.7%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 105 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 56.5%. 23 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 56% of the 7,702 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
56%
Carrier
24%
National Airspace System
12%
Extreme weather
7%
Security
0%

56% 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 7,702 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 7,702 reported delay minutes.

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 78.6% on time here.

Cancellations run at 5.49%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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. 11.9% 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 323 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 65.0% on time across 418 flights, 6 points below 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. 419 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 CMH

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.49% 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. 396 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

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.

Key figures