Carrier route record

OHPHL→CVG

PSA Airlines · Philadelphia to Cincinnati

Flights: 998
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 84%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.

PSA on PHL to CVG carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 998 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate PSA on PHL to CVG from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 960 completed flights

Avg delay

93 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.51%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.9%

Every carrier on PHL to CVG, 1,184 flights

These figures cover 998 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.6% 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 PHL to CVG

PSA flew 998 of the 1,184 flights on PHL to CVG, most of the route. Its 74.0% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 94.5% to PSA at 74.0%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHL to CVG
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	128	94.5%	105 min	0.00%	A+
American Airlinesthin sample	58	86.0%	75 min	1.72%	A
PSA Airlines (this page)	998	74.0%	93 min	3.51%	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 21 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–8am—
8am–11am225 flights87.6%
11am–2pm204 flights75.9%
2pm–5pm114 flights68.2%
5pm–8pm358 flights66.8%
8pm–5am97 flights71.1%

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 87.6% of the time, against 66.8% for the evening window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 358 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

PSA on PHL to CVG through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, July worst

July is the worst month at 50.8% on time, 37 points below September, the best at 87.5%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 137 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 69.1%. 10 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 42% of the 23,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
42%
Carrier
38%
National Airspace System
12%
Extreme weather
8%

42% 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 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 23,217 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 8,716 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations run at 3.51%, 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.6% 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 507 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 79.1% on time across 999 flights, 5 points above 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 998 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 PHL to CVG

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.51% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 960 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

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.

Key figures