Carrier route record
OHDCA→SDF
PSA Airlines · Washington to Louisville
- Flights
- 544
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 53%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on DCA to SDF lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 544 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 515 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.33%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.9%
Every carrier on DCA to SDF, 1,027 flights
These figures cover 544 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
PSA against every carrier on DCA to SDF
PSA flew 544 of the 1,027 flights on DCA to SDF, most of the route. Its 76.7% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 83.3% to Republic at 72.5%. 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+ |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 544 | 76.7% | 60 min | 5.33% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 465 | 72.5% | 76 min | 5.38% | C− |
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 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am116 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am168 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm43 flights70.7%
- 2pm–5pm188 flights66.1%
- 5pm–8pm29 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.6% of the time, against 66.1% for the afternoon window. That is 25 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 188 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on DCA to SDF through the year
February is the weak month at 66.7% on time, against 90.0% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 68.3%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late PSA on DCA to SDF runs when it is late
PSA on DCA to SDF often beats the schedule: 172 of 515 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 120 late arrivals split 42 under half an hour, 37 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 41 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early172 flights33.4%
- Within 15 min223 flights43.3%
- 15–29 min late42 flights8.2%
- 30–59 min late37 flights7.2%
- 1–2 hours late30 flights5.8%
- 2+ hours late11 flights2.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 515 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
23 of 119 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. 24 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for PSA on DCA to SDF
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 November 2025, 6 hours 54 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 November 2025 | 6 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 June 2026 | 4 hours 14 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 2 May 2026 | 3 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 December 2025 | 3 hours 33 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 May 2026 | 3 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 7,252 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,252 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 7,252 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 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.33%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
8.0% 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 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.4% on time across 544 flights, 3 points below 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 544 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 5.33% 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. 515 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.