Carrier route record

OHDCA→PIT

PSA Airlines · Washington to Pittsburgh

Flights: 371
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 26%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 371 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate PSA on DCA to PIT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 345 completed flights

Avg delay

67 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

6.74%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

72.7%

Every carrier on DCA to PIT, 1,413 flights

These figures cover 371 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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 PIT

PSA flew 371 of the 1,413 flights on DCA to PIT, about 26% of it. Its 75.1% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 87.3% to American at 57.0%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to PIT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	170	87.3%	44 min	2.94%	A
PSA Airlines (this page)	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

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 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am100 flights87.8%
8am–11am86 flights84.6%
11am–2pm28 flights—
2pm–5pm28 flights—
5pm–8pm113 flights55.6%
8pm–5am16 flights—

Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.6% on time, against 87.8% 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 113 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

PSA on DCA to PIT through the year

Jul–Sep 202529 flights—
Oct–Dec 2025124 flights81.2%
Jan–Mar 202656 flights56.0%
Apr–Jun 2026100 flights68.8%
Jul–Sep 202662 flights85.7%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. 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 75.1% on time across 371 flights.

PSA on DCA to PIT did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 85.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 56.0%, a swing of 30 points on roughly 93 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 83.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.6%, a spread of 15 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late PSA on DCA to PIT runs when it is late

PSA on DCA to PIT often beats the schedule: 102 of 345 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 86 late arrivals split 26 under half an hour, 32 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 28 an hour or more.

15+ min early102 flights29.6%
Within 15 min157 flights45.5%
15–29 min late26 flights7.5%
30–59 min late32 flights9.3%
1–2 hours late18 flights5.2%
2+ hours late10 flights2.9%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 345 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

16 of 92 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for PSA on DCA to PIT

The latest arrival of the period was on 19 February 2026, 13 hours 24 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across February, November, March and April, with no single month standing out.

The latest arrivals of PSA on DCA to PIT in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
19 February 2026	13 hours 24 minutes	Carrier
26 November 2025	3 hours 39 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
2 March 2026	3 hours 35 minutes	Extreme weather
1 April 2026	3 hours 4 minutes	Extreme weather
5 March 2026	3 hours	Carrier

Delay causes

Why PSA runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 5,766 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
48%
Carrier
29%
National Airspace System
13%
Extreme weather
10%

48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,766 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 5,766 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.8% on time here.

Cancellations run at 6.74%, 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

8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 64.7% on time across 371 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. 371 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 6.74% 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. 345 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures