Carrier route record
OHIAD→CLT
PSA Airlines · Washington to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,032
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 52%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on IAD to CLT carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,032 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 440 at 85.2% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, PSA's IAD to CLT record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 65 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 997 completed flights
Avg delay
104 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
83.7%
Every carrier on IAD to CLT, 1,994 flights
These figures cover 1,032 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
PSA against every carrier on IAD to CLT
PSA flew 1,032 of the 1,994 flights on IAD to CLT, most of the route. Its 84.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 83.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 88.5% to Republic at 81.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 26 | 88.5% | 50 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 440 | 85.2% | 81 min | 1.36% | A |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 1,032 | 84.1% | 104 min | 3.39% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 496 | 81.3% | 72 min | 2.82% | B |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 85.2%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am57 flights83.3%
- 8am–11am259 flights91.5%
- 11am–2pm257 flights89.5%
- 2pm–5pm249 flights81.5%
- 5pm–8pm147 flights72.5%
- 8pm–5am63 flights66.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.5% of the time, against 66.7% for the overnight 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 259 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on IAD to CLT through the year
December is the weak month at 69.7% on time, against 93.9% in September. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 143 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.5%. 14 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 55% of the 17,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% 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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 16,579 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 91.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.39%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
6.9% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 322 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.0% on time across 1,031 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. 1,032 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 IAD to CLT
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.39% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 997 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAD to CLT, every carrier
- PSA on CLT to IAD, the return leg
- American Airlines on IAD to CLT85.2%
- Republic Airways on IAD to CLT81.3%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) 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.