Carrier route record
WNDCA→PVD
Southwest Airlines · Washington to Providence
- Flights
- 672
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 27%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DCA to PVD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 672 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 452 at 76.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest 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
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 660 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.64%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.8%
Every carrier on DCA to PVD, 2,452 flights
These figures cover 672 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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
Southwest against every carrier on DCA to PVD
Southwest flew 672 of the 2,452 flights on DCA to PVD, about 27% of it. Its 74.7% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two 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 choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 76.7% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 69.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,061 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 452 | 76.7% | 60 min | 1.99% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 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 Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am12 flights—
- 8am–11am175 flights88.3%
- 11am–2pm148 flights85.7%
- 2pm–5pm231 flights59.1%
- 5pm–8pm106 flights67.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.3% of the time, against 59.1% for the afternoon window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 231 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DCA to PVD through the year
July is the worst month at 54.4% on time, 30 points below January, the best at 84.3%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 76.7% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 71.8%. 5 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 61% of the 12,000 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.
- 61%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
61% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 11,769 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 88.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.64% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.9% 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 a little over 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 78.9% on time across 672 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 672 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 Southwest on DCA to PVD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 672 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 74.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 660 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to PVD, every carrier
- Southwest on PVD to DCA, the return leg
- American Airlines on DCA to PVD76.7%
- Republic Airways on DCA to PVD73.4%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to PVD69.6%
- Southwest 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.