Carrier route record
OHDTW→DCA
PSA Airlines · Detroit to Washington
- Flights
- 956
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 32%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on DTW to DCA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 956 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on DTW to DCA runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 80 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 890 completed flights
Avg delay
123 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.49%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.6%
Every carrier on DTW to DCA, 2,978 flights
These figures cover 956 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.3% 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 DTW to DCA
PSA flew 956 of the 2,978 flights on DTW to DCA, about 32% of it. Its 69.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 68.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to American at 25.0%. Three 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 | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 956 | 69.6% | 123 min | 6.49% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,745 | 68.8% | 62 min | 2.29% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 271 | 64.2% | 69 min | 4.80% | D− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 25.0% | 207 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 31 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–8am270 flights77.8%
- 8am–11am314 flights78.3%
- 11am–2pm51 flights82.4%
- 2pm–5pm88 flights51.8%
- 5pm–8pm233 flights51.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.6% on time, against 82.4% for the 11am–2pm 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 314 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on DTW to DCA through the year
April is the best month on the calendar at 87.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. November was the busiest month here, with 108 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.0%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 33,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% 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 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 33,308 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 12,000 of the 33,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 6.49%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 14.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 405 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 69.5% on time across 957 flights, within half a point 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. 956 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 DTW to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.49% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 890 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to DCA, every carrier
- PSA on DCA to DTW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to DCA68.8%
- Republic Airways on DTW to DCA64.2%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.