Carrier route record

OHDCA→PIT

PSA Airlines · Washington to Pittsburgh

Flights: 362
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 25%
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 PIT sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 362 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on DCA to PIT runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.

On time

73.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 340 completed flights

Avg delay

67 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

6.08%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.2%

Every carrier on DCA to PIT, 1,431 flights

These figures cover 362 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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 PIT

PSA flew 362 of the 1,431 flights on DCA to PIT, about 25% of it. Its 73.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 88.0% to American at 65.6%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to PIT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	196	88.0%	43 min	2.55%	A
Republic Airways	773	74.1%	57 min	3.88%	C−
PSA Airlines (this page)thin sample	362	73.2%	67 min	6.08%	C−
American Airlinesthin sample	100	65.6%	107 min	4.00%	C−

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 33 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–8am61 flights89.1%
8am–11am76 flights85.5%
11am–2pm50 flights82.0%
2pm–5pm28 flights—
5pm–8pm135 flights56.2%
8pm–5am12 flights—

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.2% on time, against 89.1% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 135 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

PSA on DCA to PIT through the year

Jul–Sep 202582 flights77.5%
Oct–Dec 2025124 flights81.2%
Jan–Mar 202656 flights56.0%
Apr–Jun 2026100 flights68.8%

Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 73.2% on time across 362 flights.

PSA on DCA to PIT did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 81.2% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 56.0%, a swing of 25 points on roughly 91 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 80.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.3%. 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 48% of the 6,090 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
48%
Carrier
28%
National Airspace System
13%
Extreme weather
11%

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 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 6,090 reported delay minutes.

48% 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 6,090 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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.

Cancellations run at 6.08%, against 1.81% 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 costs

8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

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 62.8% on time across 362 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 362 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 PIT

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.08% 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. 340 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

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.

Key figures