Route reliability record
DCA→PIT
Washington to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 1,413
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 204 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.3% 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 1,413 DCA to PIT flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 371 at 75.1% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to PIT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.9% of the time and Saturday flights 81.8%, against 72.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 46 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,350 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.32%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
75.1% on time across 371 flights
These figures cover 1,413 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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 PIT
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 170 | 87.3% | 44 min | 2.94% | A |
| PSA Airlines | 371 | 75.1% | 67 min | 6.74% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 749 | 70.9% | 61 min | 3.87% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 123 | 57.0% | 94 min | 1.63% | D |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.7% 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 PIT
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 Pittsburgh
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → PITWashington to Pittsburgh | United Airlines | 86.8% | 87.5% | 0.77% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. IAD → PITWashington to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 79.9% | 81.9% | 2.44% | 11am–2pm, Mon | YX 3540 22:30 |
| 3. BWI → PITBaltimore to Pittsburgh | Southwest Airlines | 76.2% | 77.9% | 2.24% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 4. DCA → PITWashington to Pittsburgh | PSA Airlines | 70.0% | 75.1% | 6.74% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 5. DCA → PITWashington to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 68.2% | 70.9% | 3.87% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4763 22:00 |
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 36 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am172 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am192 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm209 flights86.8%
- 2pm–5pm197 flights67.9%
- 5pm–8pm294 flights54.0%
- 8pm–5am349 flights68.1%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.0% on time, against 89.9% for the 5am–8am 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 349 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to PIT 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 PIT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 54.0%, a wide gap of 35.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.9%
- 8–11am84.7%
- 11am–2pm86.8%
- 2–5pm67.9%
- 5–8pm54.0%
- 8pm–5am68.1%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
August is the worst month at 59.4% on time, 30 points below September, the best at 89.8%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 139 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.8%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 24,311 reported delay minutes.
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one.
Cancellations run at 4.32%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
9.6% 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 204 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.3% on time across 1,413 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,413 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 PIT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.32% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,350 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to PIT questions
How often is DCA to PIT 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 27.3% of the 1,413 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to PIT?
PSA Airlines leads at 75.1% on time across 371 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 70.9%, a gap of 4 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 PIT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 54.0%, 36 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 August delays on DCA to PIT?
August is the weakest month at 59.4% on time, compared with 89.8% in September. Across the year that is 30 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
- PIT to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DCA to PIT87.3%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to PIT75.1%
- Republic Airways on DCA to PIT70.9%
- American Airlines on DCA to PIT57.0%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ORD to PIT, a related route73.6%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record87.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record75.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record70.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to PIT and PIT 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.