Carrier route record
OHMSP→DCA
PSA Airlines · Minneapolis to Washington
- Flights
- 528
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 20%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on MSP to DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 2.8 hours behind schedule. That rests on 528 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so PSA on MSP to DCA runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 51 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 492 completed flights
Avg delay
168 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.06%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.6%
Every carrier on MSP to DCA, 2,632 flights
These figures cover 528 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
PSA against every carrier on MSP to DCA
PSA flew 528 of the 2,632 flights on MSP to DCA, about 20% of it. Its 72.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 78.1% to American at 61.5%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 199 | 78.1% | 71 min | 5.03% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,701 | 75.9% | 61 min | 1.94% | B |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 528 | 72.2% | 168 min | 6.06% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 163 | 67.5% | 65 min | 4.29% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 41 | 61.5% | 73 min | 4.88% | D− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 38 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am163 flights82.8%
- 8am–11am30 flights—
- 11am–2pm248 flights73.3%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm86 flights44.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 35% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 44.9% on time, against 82.8% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 248 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on MSP to DCA through the year
December is the weak month at 54.0% on time, against 87.8% in May. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 78 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 94.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.0%, a spread of 29 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late PSA on MSP to DCA runs when it is late
PSA on MSP to DCA often beats the schedule: 197 of 492 completed flights, 40%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 137 late arrivals split 34 under half an hour, 38 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 65 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early197 flights40.0%
- Within 15 min158 flights32.1%
- 15–29 min late34 flights6.9%
- 30–59 min late38 flights7.7%
- 1–2 hours late31 flights6.3%
- 2+ hours late34 flights6.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 492 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
33 of 138 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 32 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for PSA on MSP to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 December 2025, 28 hours 56 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 December 2025 | 28 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 August 2026 | 26 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 March 2026 | 24 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 August 2026 | 21 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 June 2026 | 21 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
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 23,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Extreme weather
- 13%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 14% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 22,971 reported delay minutes.
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 6.06%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in fifteen 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
13.2% 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 931 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 65.4% on time across 528 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 528 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 MSP to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.06% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.8 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. 492 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to DCA, every carrier
- PSA on DCA to MSP, the return leg
- Republic Airways on MSP to DCA78.1%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to DCA75.9%
- Envoy Air on MSP to DCA67.5%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.