Route reliability record
DCA→GSP
Washington to Greer
- Flights
- 999
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 396 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% 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 999 DCA to GSP flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Best time to fly DCA to GSP: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 77.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 73.4%, against 64.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 133 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
64.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 946 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.21%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
63.0% on time across 947 flights
These figures cover 999 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 17.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to GSP
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 | 52 | 80.4% | 56 min | 1.92% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 947 | 63.0% | 90 min | 5.39% | D− |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Greer
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BWI → GSPBaltimore to Greer | Southwest Airlines | 79.0% | 80.5% | 1.81% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. DCA → GSPWashington to Greer | PSA Airlines | 59.6% | 63.0% | 5.39% | 8am–11am, Tue (route) | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am301 flights77.6%
- 11am–2pm28 flights—
- 2pm–5pm53 flights61.2%
- 5pm–8pm398 flights55.5%
- 8pm–5am218 flights56.7%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.5% on time, against 77.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 398 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to GSP by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On DCA to GSP, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 77.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 55.5%, a wide gap of 22.1 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am77.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm61.2%
- 5–8pm55.5%
- 8pm–5am56.7%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 43.9% on time, 33 points below April, the best at 77.2%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 73.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 55.8%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 30,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 30,431 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 77.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.21%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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 actually costs
17.9% 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 396 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 runs 64.5% on time across 999 flights, within half a point 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. 999 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in GSP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.21% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 946 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to GSP questions
How often is DCA to GSP delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 36.0% of the 999 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DCA to GSP compared with the rest of the country?
64.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 13 points against it. That is worth a D− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to GSP?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 77.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.5%, 22 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on DCA to GSP?
July is the weakest month at 43.9% on time, compared with 77.2% in April. Across the year that is 33 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- GSP to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ATL to GSP, a related route83.7%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record63.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to GSP and GSP to DCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.