Carrier route record
OHDCA→SDF
PSA Airlines · Washington to Louisville
- Flights
- 572
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 55%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on DCA to SDF 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 572 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate PSA on DCA to SDF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 536 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.1%
Every carrier on DCA to SDF, 1,031 flights
These figures cover 572 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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 SDF
PSA flew 572 of the 1,031 flights on DCA to SDF, most of the route. Its 74.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 83.3% to PSA at 74.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 13 | 83.3% | 42 min | 7.69% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 66 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 441 | 75.4% | 79 min | 6.80% | B− |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 572 | 74.6% | 61 min | 6.29% | C− |
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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am82 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am206 flights81.2%
- 11am–2pm16 flights—
- 2pm–5pm187 flights65.9%
- 5pm–8pm81 flights58.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.6% on time, against 92.3% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 206 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on DCA to SDF through the year
July is the worst month at 64.4% on time, 26 points below October, the best at 90.0%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 64.3%. 18 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 45% of the 8,236 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% 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 8,236 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 8,236 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 92.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.29%, 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
8.4% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 474 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 72.8% on time across 572 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. 572 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 SDF
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.29% 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. 536 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.