Carrier route record
OHMEM→DCA
PSA Airlines · Memphis to Washington
- Flights
- 650
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 56%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on MEM to DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 650 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on MEM to DCA runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 610 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.23%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.4%
Every carrier on MEM to DCA, 1,152 flights
These figures cover 650 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% 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 MEM to DCA
PSA flew 650 of the 1,152 flights on MEM to DCA, most of the route. Its 73.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 100.0% to PSA at 73.1%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 5 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 493 | 77.8% | 73 min | 3.65% | B− |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 650 | 73.1% | 98 min | 5.23% | 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 30 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–8am142 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am286 flights72.5%
- 11am–2pm79 flights67.1%
- 2pm–5pm31 flights70.0%
- 5pm–8pm112 flights59.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.0% on time, against 88.8% 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 286 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on MEM to DCA through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 53.8%. August is the strongest month at 90.6%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 37 points. July was the busiest month here, with 85 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 63.7%. 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 46% of the 16,000 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
- 24%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 1%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 16,000 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 16,087 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 88.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.23%, 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.8% 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.
The 762 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 72.5% on time across 649 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. 650 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 MEM to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.23% 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. 610 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.