Carrier route record
AADCA→PVD
American Airlines · Washington to Providence
- Flights
- 452
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 18%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DCA to PVD lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 452 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 672 at 74.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on DCA to PVD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 443 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.99%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.8%
Every carrier on DCA to PVD, 2,452 flights
These figures cover 452 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DCA to PVD
American flew 452 of the 2,452 flights on DCA to PVD, about 18% of it. Its 76.7% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 76.7% to PSA at 69.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 452 | 76.7% | 60 min | 1.99% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 672 | 74.7% | 71 min | 1.64% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 71 | 73.9% | 72 min | 2.82% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 196 | 73.4% | 63 min | 6.12% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 1,061 | 69.6% | 68 min | 6.79% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.8% 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.
Departure window
When American 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 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am83 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm213 flights79.2%
- 2pm–5pm55 flights85.2%
- 5pm–8pm11 flights—
- 8pm–5am90 flights62.2%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.2% on time, against 85.2% for the 2pm–5pm 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 213 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DCA to PVD through the year
August is the worst month at 62.3% on time, 25 points below November, the best at 87.5%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 6,195 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
51% 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 6,195 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 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 6,195 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,183 of the 6,195 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.99% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.2% 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 356 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.6% on time across 452 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 452 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 American on DCA to PVD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 452 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 76.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 443 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to PVD, every carrier
- American on PVD to DCA, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to PVD74.7%
- Republic Airways on DCA to PVD73.4%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to PVD69.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.