Carrier route record
OHDCA→MSN
PSA Airlines · Washington to Madison
- Flights
- 783
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- 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 MSN carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.5% 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 783 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on DCA to MSN runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 85 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 737 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.49%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.0%
Every carrier on DCA to MSN, 1,191 flights
These figures cover 783 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.7% 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 MSN
PSA flew 783 of the 1,191 flights on DCA to MSN, most of the route. Its 69.1% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 78.2% to American at 60.0%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 384 | 78.2% | 72 min | 4.43% | B− |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 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+ |
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 23 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–8am—
- 8am–11am175 flights74.1%
- 11am–2pm101 flights84.2%
- 2pm–5pm223 flights66.8%
- 5pm–8pm11 flights—
- 8pm–5am273 flights61.1%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.1% on time, against 84.2% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 273 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on DCA to MSN through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 84.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. April was the busiest month here, with 83 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 74.5% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 61.7%. 13 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 57% of the 19,000 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.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
57% 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 19,000 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 19,426 reported delay minutes.
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. 13.7% 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 76.4% on time across 782 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 783 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 MSN
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.49% 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. 737 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.