Carrier route record
OHDCA→PVD
PSA Airlines · Washington to Providence
- Flights
- 1,062
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 44%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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: 7.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 1,062 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 450 at 77.0% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so PSA on DCA to PVD runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 83 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 986 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.16%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.5%
Every carrier on DCA to PVD, 2,426 flights
These figures cover 1,062 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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 PVD
PSA flew 1,062 of the 2,426 flights on DCA to PVD, about 44% of it. Its 69.0% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last 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: 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 | 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 (this page) | 1,062 | 69.0% | 72 min | 7.16% | C− |
American Airlines cancels 3.3% 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 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.
- 5am–8am154 flights81.8%
- 8am–11am200 flights77.7%
- 11am–2pm174 flights70.2%
- 2pm–5pm153 flights62.8%
- 5pm–8pm228 flights58.4%
- 8pm–5am153 flights63.9%
Scale runs 50% to 85%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.4% on time, against 81.8% 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 228 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. August was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 61.5%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late PSA on DCA to PVD runs when it is late
The 306 late arrivals split 92 under half an hour, 95 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 119 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early234 flights23.7%
- Within 15 min446 flights45.2%
- 15–29 min late92 flights9.3%
- 30–59 min late95 flights9.6%
- 1–2 hours late73 flights7.4%
- 2+ hours late46 flights4.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 986 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
42 of 305 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. 43 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for PSA on DCA to PVD
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 July 2026, 14 hours 19 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in August 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 July 2026 | 14 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 July 2026 | 9 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 August 2026 | 7 hours 41 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 3 August 2026 | 6 hours 53 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 8 August 2026 | 6 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 22,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 22,155 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 81.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 7.16%, 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
12.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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 66.1% on time across 1,062 flights, within 3 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. 1,062 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 7.16% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 986 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 PVD77.0%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to PVD74.7%
- Republic Airways on DCA to PVD73.8%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.