Carrier route record
OHDCA→PVD
PSA Airlines · Washington to Providence
- Flights
- 1,061
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on DCA to PVD carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 1,061 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 452 at 76.7% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on DCA to PVD runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 80 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 988 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.79%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.8%
Every carrier on DCA to PVD, 2,452 flights
These figures cover 1,061 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.8% 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 PVD
PSA flew 1,061 of the 2,452 flights on DCA to PVD, about 43% of it. Its 69.6% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last 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: 2 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 | 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 (this page) | 1,061 | 69.6% | 68 min | 6.79% | C− |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 76.7%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 23 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am197 flights82.0%
- 8am–11am207 flights79.7%
- 11am–2pm118 flights72.0%
- 2pm–5pm158 flights61.7%
- 5pm–8pm235 flights58.8%
- 8pm–5am146 flights60.8%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.8% on time, against 82.0% 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 235 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on DCA to PVD through the year
February is the weak month at 60.0% on time, against 82.6% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 139 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 64.6%. 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 55% of the 20,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% 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 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 20,246 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 82.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.79%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 68.0% on time across 1,063 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,061 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 PVD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.79% 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. 988 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to PVD, every carrier
- PSA on PVD to DCA, the return leg
- American Airlines on DCA to PVD76.7%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to PVD74.7%
- Republic Airways on DCA to PVD73.4%
- PSA 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.