Route reliability record
MSN→DCA
Madison to Washington
- Flights
- 1,238
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 707 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 1,238 MSN to DCA flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 858 at 74.4% on time.
Best time to fly MSN to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.8% of the time and Saturday flights 84.7%, against 72.9% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,164 completed flights
Avg delay
103 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
74.4% on time across 858 flights
These figures cover 1,238 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSN to DCA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 858 | 74.4% | 117 min | 5.94% | C− |
| Republic Airways | 375 | 69.4% | 77 min | 3.47% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.9% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSN 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Madison to Washington
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSN → DCAMadison to Washington | PSA Airlines | 70.0% | 74.4% | 5.94% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. MSN → DCAMadison to Washington | Republic Airways | 67.0% | 69.4% | 3.47% | 5pm–8pm, Mon | YX 5645 17:20 |
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 23 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am344 flights86.8%
- 8am–11am116 flights65.5%
- 11am–2pm165 flights69.2%
- 2pm–5pm302 flights64.3%
- 5pm–8pm311 flights71.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.8% of the time, against 64.3% for the afternoon window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 344 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSN to DCA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On MSN to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 64.3%, a wide gap of 22.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.8%
- 8–11am65.5%
- 11am–2pm69.2%
- 2–5pm64.3%
- 5–8pm71.0%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
July is the worst month at 62.6% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 87.8%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 115 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 66.5%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 32,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 32,472 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 32,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 5.17%, 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 actually costs
12.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 707 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.4% on time across 1,238 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,238 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
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 5.17% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 1,164 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSN to DCA questions
How often is MSN to DCA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.1% of the 1,238 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSN to DCA?
PSA Airlines leads at 74.4% on time across 858 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 69.4%, a gap of 5 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSN to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 64.3%, 23 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 July delays on MSN to DCA?
July is the weakest month at 62.6% on time, compared with 87.8% in September. Across the year that is 25 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 MSN — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on MSN to DCA74.4%
- Republic Airways on MSN to DCA69.4%
- MSN to ORD, a related route72.8%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- MSN to MSP, a related route84.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record74.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MSN to DCA and DCA to MSN 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.