Route reliability record
GSP→DCA
Greer to Washington
- Flights
- 1,017
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 396 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 1,017 GSP to DCA flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
Best time to fly GSP to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 76.5% of the time and Saturday flights 77.6%, against 67.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 105 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 964 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.01%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
66.6% on time across 959 flights
These figures cover 1,017 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% 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
Which airline is most reliable on GSP to DCA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 24 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 52 | 74.5% | 46 min | 1.92% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 959 | 66.6% | 88 min | 5.21% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on GSP to DCA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Greer to Washington
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. GSP → BWIGreer to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 88.1% | 89.5% | 1.53% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. GSP → DCAGreer to Washington | PSA Airlines | 63.1% | 66.6% | 5.21% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | OH 5031 07:38 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 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–8am354 flights76.5%
- 8am–11am174 flights73.5%
- 11am–2pm188 flights65.8%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm243 flights49.8%
- 8pm–5am58 flights62.3%
Scale runs 40% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.8% on time, against 76.5% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 354 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
February is the weak month at 49.3% on time, against 79.7% in April. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 58.5%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 27,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 27,204 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 76.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.01%, against 1.81% 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.1% 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 396 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 66.2% on time across 1,018 flights, within about 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. 1,017 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.01% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 964 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GSP to DCA questions
How often is GSP to DCA delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.9% of the 1,017 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is GSP to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
67.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 11 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on GSP to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 76.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 49.8%, 27 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are February delays on GSP to DCA?
February is the weakest month at 49.3% on time, compared with 79.7% in April. Across the year that is 30 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to GSP — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- GSP to ATL, a related route90.4%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- GSP to ORD, a related route74.9%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. GSP to DCA and DCA to GSP are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.