Route reliability record
DCA→MSN
Washington to Madison
- Flights
- 1,238
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 707 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 1,238 DCA to MSN flights, of which Republic Airways flew 375 at 76.0% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to MSN: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.1% of the time and Monday flights 77.2%, against 69.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 79 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,162 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.90%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
76.0% on time across 375 flights
These figures cover 1,238 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.1% 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 MSN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.0% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 66.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 859 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 375 | 76.0% | 82 min | 2.40% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 859 | 66.5% | 88 min | 7.45% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 33.3% | 33 min | 0.00% | F+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 22 min | 0.00% | F+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.5% 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.
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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 | 74.2% | 76.0% | 2.40% | 2pm–5pm, Mon | YX 5645 15:40 |
| 2. DCA → MSNWashington to Madison | PSA Airlines | 61.5% | 66.5% | 7.45% | 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 25 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am202 flights75.6%
- 11am–2pm109 flights82.1%
- 2pm–5pm599 flights70.8%
- 5pm–8pm15 flights—
- 8pm–5am313 flights56.8%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.8% on time, against 82.1% 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 599 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to MSN 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 MSN, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 82.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 56.8%, a wide gap of 25.3 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am75.6%
- 11am–2pm82.1%
- 2–5pm70.8%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am56.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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 77.2% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 64.6%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 30,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% 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 11 to one. The split is drawn from 30,482 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.90%, 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 actually costs
14.1% 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.
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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.9% on time across 1,238 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,238 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 5.90% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,162 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 three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.6% of the 1,238 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to MSN?
Republic Airways leads at 76.0% on time across 375 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 66.5%, a gap of 10 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 82.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.8%, 25 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 MSN76.0%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to MSN66.5%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ORD to MSN, a related route71.0%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record66.5%
- American Airlines on-time record33.3%
- 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
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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.