Route reliability record
PVD→DCA
Providence to Washington
- Flights
- 2,453
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 356 mi
- Carriers
- 5
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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,453 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 672 at 78.9% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.9% on time across 672 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,324 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.9% on time across 672 flights
These figures cover 2,453 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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 PVD to DCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 78.9% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 68.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,063 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 70 | 84.1% | 36 min | 10.00% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 672 | 78.9% | 65 min | 2.68% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 196 | 75.1% | 63 min | 5.10% | B− |
| American Airlines | 452 | 73.6% | 56 min | 1.99% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 1,063 | 68.0% | 91 min | 7.24% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.2% 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.
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 30 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am480 flights89.1%
- 8am–11am468 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm395 flights66.6%
- 2pm–5pm453 flights66.8%
- 5pm–8pm574 flights58.8%
- 8pm–5am83 flights62.2%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.8% on time, against 89.1% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 574 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
February is the weak month at 65.5% on time, against 81.6% in October. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 230 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.0%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 47,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 15%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% 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 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 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 47,328 reported delay minutes.
32% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 15,000 minutes out of 47,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.93%, 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. 9.3% 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.
At 356 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 72.8% on time across 2,452 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,453 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.93% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 2,324 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PVD to DCA questions
How often is PVD to DCA delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.9% of the 2,453 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PVD to DCA?
Southwest Airlines leads at 78.9% on time across 672 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 68.0%, a gap of 11 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 PVD to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.8%, 30 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 February delays on PVD to DCA?
February is the weakest month at 65.5% on time, compared with 81.6% in October. Across the year that is 16 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 PVD — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on-time record84.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. PVD to DCA and DCA to PVD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.