Route reliability record
DCA→MSN
Washington to Madison
- Flights
- 1,191
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 707 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.1% 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 1,191 DCA to MSN flights, of which Republic Airways flew 384 at 78.2% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to MSN: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.3% of the time and Monday flights 76.0%, against 72.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 56 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,127 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.12%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
78.2% on time across 384 flights
These figures cover 1,191 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to MSN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 78.2% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 69.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 783 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 384 | 78.2% | 72 min | 4.43% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 783 | 69.1% | 85 min | 5.49% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 19 | 66.7% | 106 min | 5.26% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 60.0% | 33 min | 0.00% | D+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to MSN
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Madison
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DCA → MSNWashington to Madison | Republic Airways | 74.7% | 78.2% | 4.43% | 11am–2pm, Sun | YX 5645 15:40 |
| 2. DCA → MSNWashington to Madison | PSA Airlines | 65.3% | 69.1% | 5.49% | 11am–2pm, Mon | — |
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 21 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am178 flights74.0%
- 11am–2pm133 flights83.3%
- 2pm–5pm552 flights73.4%
- 5pm–8pm11 flights—
- 8pm–5am317 flights62.7%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.7% on time, against 83.3% for the 11am–2pm 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 552 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 83.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 115 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 76.0% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 66.9%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 26,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 5%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 25,882 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.12%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.3% 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.
The 707 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.0% on time across 1,191 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,191 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MSN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.12% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,127 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to MSN questions
How often is DCA to MSN delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.0% of the 1,191 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to MSN?
Republic Airways leads at 78.2% on time across 384 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 69.1%, a gap of 9 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to MSN?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 83.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.7%, 21 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 March delays on DCA to MSN?
March is the weakest month at 59.0% on time, compared with 83.2% in October. Across the year that is 24 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
- MSN to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DCA to MSN78.2%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to MSN69.1%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- ORD to MSN, a related route71.4%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record69.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record66.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to MSN and MSN to DCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DCA to MSN’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.