Carrier route record
OHPVD→DCA
PSA Airlines · Providence to Washington
- Flights
- 1,063
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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: 7.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 1,063 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 672 at 78.9% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so PSA on PVD to DCA runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 96 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 983 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.24%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.1%
Every carrier on PVD to DCA, 2,453 flights
These figures cover 1,063 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% 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 PVD to DCA
PSA flew 1,063 of the 2,453 flights on PVD to DCA, about 43% of it. Its 68.0% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 73.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 84.1% to PSA at 68.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 | 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 (this page) | 1,063 | 68.0% | 91 min | 7.24% | C− |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 78.9%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 30 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am149 flights84.9%
- 8am–11am228 flights80.6%
- 11am–2pm193 flights60.6%
- 2pm–5pm156 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm309 flights54.5%
- 8pm–5am28 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.5% on time, against 84.9% 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 309 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on PVD to DCA through the year
February is the weak month at 57.4% on time, against 76.5% in April. 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 139 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 73.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.8%. 9 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 55% of the 29,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
55% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 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 28,602 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 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 7.24%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.7% 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 69.6% on time across 1,061 flights, within 2 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. 1,063 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 7.24% 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. 983 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 DCA78.9%
- Republic Airways on PVD to DCA75.1%
- American Airlines on PVD to DCA73.6%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.