Carrier route record
WNDCA→PVD
Southwest Airlines · Washington to Providence
- Flights
- 670
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 670 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 450 at 77.0% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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 653 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.5%
Every carrier on DCA to PVD, 2,426 flights
These figures cover 670 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on DCA to PVD
Southwest flew 670 of the 2,426 flights on DCA to PVD, about 28% of it. Its 74.7% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two 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 choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 77.0% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 69.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,062 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 450 | 77.0% | 62 min | 3.33% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 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 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 35 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am8 flights—
- 8am–11am180 flights90.4%
- 11am–2pm145 flights86.0%
- 2pm–5pm234 flights55.6%
- 5pm–8pm103 flights72.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.4% of the time, against 55.6% for the afternoon window. That is 35 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 234 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DCA to PVD through the year
July is the worst month at 64.2% on time, 20 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 77.5% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 72.1%, a spread of 5 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on DCA to PVD runs when it is late
The 165 late arrivals split 49 under half an hour, 62 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 54 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early151 flights23.1%
- Within 15 min337 flights51.6%
- 15–29 min late49 flights7.5%
- 30–59 min late62 flights9.5%
- 1–2 hours late35 flights5.4%
- 2+ hours late19 flights2.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 653 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
57 of 210 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 27% of them. Only 12 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on DCA to PVD
The latest arrival of the period was on 1 April 2026, 7 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 1 April 2026 | 7 hours 29 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 20 May 2026 | 6 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 July 2026 | 5 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 25 June 2026 | 4 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 23 March 2026 | 4 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 10,508 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 90.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.54%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
8.3% 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 runs 76.8% on time across 670 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. 670 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. 670 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. 653 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 PVD77.0%
- Republic Airways on DCA to PVD73.8%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to PVD69.0%
- Southwest 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.