Carrier route record
OHPVD→DCA
PSA Airlines · Providence to Washington
- Flights
- 1,062
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 44%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on PVD to DCA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 8.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 1,062 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 670 at 76.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so PSA on PVD to DCA runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 112 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 970 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
8.29%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.0%
Every carrier on PVD to DCA, 2,426 flights
These figures cover 1,062 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% 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 PVD to DCA
PSA flew 1,062 of the 2,426 flights on PVD to DCA, about 44% of it. Its 66.1% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 71.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 85.7% to PSA at 66.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 76.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 70.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 450 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 42 | 85.7% | 23 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 670 | 76.8% | 61 min | 2.09% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 202 | 73.9% | 60 min | 8.42% | C− |
| American Airlines | 450 | 70.8% | 59 min | 3.33% | C− |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 1,062 | 66.1% | 95 min | 8.29% | C− |
American Airlines cancels 3.3% 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.
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 28 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am155 flights81.9%
- 8am–11am188 flights77.7%
- 11am–2pm181 flights57.8%
- 2pm–5pm212 flights66.5%
- 5pm–8pm274 flights56.4%
- 8pm–5am52 flights53.7%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.7% on time, against 81.9% 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 274 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on PVD to DCA through the year
August is the worst month at 53.8% on time, 23 points below April, the best at 76.5%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 60.5%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late PSA on PVD to DCA runs when it is late
PSA on PVD to DCA often beats the schedule: 281 of 970 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 329 late arrivals split 108 under half an hour, 102 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 119 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early281 flights29.0%
- Within 15 min360 flights37.1%
- 15–29 min late108 flights11.1%
- 30–59 min late102 flights10.5%
- 1–2 hours late68 flights7.0%
- 2+ hours late51 flights5.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 970 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
36 of 287 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. In the other direction, 78 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 PVD to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 July 2026, 26 hours 50 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in June 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 July 2026 | 26 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 23 December 2025 | 22 hours 39 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 June 2026 | 21 hours 37 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 12 June 2026 | 19 hours 32 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 June 2026 | 19 hours 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%National Airspace System
- 15%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 to one. The split is drawn from 31,293 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 81.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 8.29%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twelve 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
12.3% 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.
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 69.0% on time across 1,062 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,062 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 PVD to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 8.29% 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. 970 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PVD to DCA, every carrier
- PSA on DCA to PVD, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on PVD to DCA76.8%
- Republic Airways on PVD to DCA73.9%
- American Airlines on PVD to DCA70.8%
- PSA Airlines network-wide record
- 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.