Carrier route record
OHDCA→MSP
PSA Airlines · Washington to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 528
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 20%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on DCA to MSP draws a C−. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is an hour and a half behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 528 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so PSA on DCA to MSP runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 119 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 488 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.20%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.6%
Every carrier on DCA to MSP, 2,632 flights
These figures cover 528 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 17.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
PSA against every carrier on DCA to MSP
PSA flew 528 of the 2,632 flights on DCA to MSP, about 20% of it. Its 65.4% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 78.9% to PSA at 65.4%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,701 | 78.9% | 94 min | 1.88% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 164 | 76.9% | 55 min | 2.44% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 41 | 72.5% | 62 min | 2.44% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 198 | 72.2% | 76 min | 5.05% | C− |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 528 | 65.4% | 96 min | 7.20% | C− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am250 flights77.5%
- 11am–2pm4 flights—
- 2pm–5pm115 flights48.1%
- 5pm–8pm24 flights—
- 8pm–5am135 flights54.4%
Scale runs 40% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 77.5% of the time, against 48.1% for the afternoon window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 250 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on DCA to MSP through the year
- Jul–Sep 202546 flights80.0%
- Oct–Dec 2025134 flights72.5%
- Jan–Mar 202684 flights62.8%
- Apr–Jun 2026148 flights63.8%
- Jul–Sep 2026116 flights53.1%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 65.4% on time across 528 flights.
PSA on DCA to MSP did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 80.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 53.1%, a swing of 27 points on roughly 106 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 73.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 52.3%, a spread of 21 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late PSA on DCA to MSP runs when it is late
The 169 late arrivals split 45 under half an hour, 41 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 83 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early118 flights24.2%
- Within 15 min201 flights41.2%
- 15–29 min late45 flights9.2%
- 30–59 min late41 flights8.4%
- 1–2 hours late41 flights8.4%
- 2+ hours late42 flights8.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 488 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
24 of 169 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. 24 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for PSA on DCA to MSP
The latest arrival of the period was on 7 June 2026, 15 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in June 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 7 June 2026 | 15 hours 29 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 June 2026 | 12 hours 23 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 2 July 2026 | 11 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 June 2026 | 11 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 August 2026 | 5 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 16,265 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 77.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 7.20%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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 costs
17.0% 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 931 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 72.2% on time across 528 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. 528 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 MSP
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.20% 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. 488 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to MSP, every carrier
- PSA on MSP to DCA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DCA to MSP78.9%
- Envoy Air on DCA to MSP76.9%
- Republic Airways on DCA to MSP72.2%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.