Carrier route record
AADCA→PVD
American Airlines · Washington to Providence
- Flights
- 450
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DCA to PVD lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 450 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 670 at 74.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 435 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.33%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.5%
Every carrier on DCA to PVD, 2,426 flights
These figures cover 450 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DCA to PVD
American flew 450 of the 2,426 flights on DCA to PVD, about 19% of it. Its 77.0% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 77.0% to PSA at 69.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 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) | 450 | 77.0% | 62 min | 3.33% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 670 | 74.7% | 64 min | 2.54% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 202 | 73.8% | 65 min | 9.41% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 42 | 70.7% | 66 min | 2.38% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 1,062 | 69.0% | 72 min | 7.16% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.2% 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.
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 American runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 450 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am83 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm213 flights79.2%
- 2pm–5pm61 flights73.2%
- 5pm–8pm6 flights—
- 8pm–5am87 flights70.6%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 80.2% of the time, against 70.6% for the overnight window. That is 10 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 213 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DCA to PVD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202560 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 2025112 flights75.9%
- Jan–Mar 2026160 flights78.3%
- Apr–Jun 202662 flights77.4%
- Jul–Sep 202656 flights63.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 77.0% on time across 450 flights.
American on DCA to PVD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 63.3%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 90 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DCA to PVD runs when it is late
American on DCA to PVD often beats the schedule: 120 of 435 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 100 late arrivals split 30 under half an hour, 38 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 32 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early120 flights27.6%
- Within 15 min215 flights49.4%
- 15–29 min late30 flights6.9%
- 30–59 min late38 flights8.7%
- 1–2 hours late22 flights5.1%
- 2+ hours late10 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 435 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
22 of 109 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 13 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DCA to PVD
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 March 2026, 6 hours 51 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 March 2026 | 6 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 February 2026 | 4 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 October 2025 | 4 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 September 2025 | 3 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 January 2026 | 3 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 6,176 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,176 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 56 to one. The split is drawn from 6,176 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 80.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.33%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
7.4% 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 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.8% on time across 450 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 450 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: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.33% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; 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. 435 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 PVD73.8%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to PVD69.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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.