Route reliability record
MSN→DCA
Madison to Washington
- Flights
- 1,191
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 707 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 1,191 MSN to DCA flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 782 at 76.4% on time.
Best time to fly MSN to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.0% of the time and Saturday flights 86.1%, against 75.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,122 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.87%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
76.4% on time across 782 flights
These figures cover 1,191 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% 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 MSN to DCA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 19 | 84.2% | 36 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 782 | 76.4% | 100 min | 5.12% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 385 | 72.2% | 86 min | 4.68% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 50.0% | 38 min | 0.00% | F+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.1% 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.
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 | 72.5% | 76.4% | 5.12% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. MSN → DCAMadison to Washington | Republic Airways | 68.8% | 72.2% | 4.68% | 5pm–8pm, Sun | 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 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am345 flights88.0%
- 8am–11am116 flights65.5%
- 11am–2pm160 flights71.3%
- 2pm–5pm264 flights67.1%
- 5pm–8pm306 flights72.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.0% of the time, against 65.5% for the morning 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 345 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
December is the weak month at 65.8% on time, against 87.8% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 115 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 66.7%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 26,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 20%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 26,000 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 26,257 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 88.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.87%, 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. 11.1% 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.
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. 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.0% on time across 1,191 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,191 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 4.87% 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. 1,122 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 25.0% of the 1,191 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSN to DCA?
PSA Airlines leads at 76.4% on time across 782 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 72.2%, a gap of 4 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 88.0% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 65.5%, 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 December delays on MSN to DCA?
December is the weakest month at 65.8% on time, compared with 87.8% in September. Across the year that is 22 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 DCA76.4%
- Republic Airways on MSN to DCA72.2%
- MSN to ORD, a related route71.9%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- MSN to MSP, a related route83.3%
- Envoy Air on-time record84.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record76.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record72.2%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.