Carrier route record
WNPVD→DCA
Southwest Airlines · Providence to Washington
- Flights
- 670
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on PVD to DCA lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 670 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 450 at 70.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on PVD to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 647 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.09%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.0%
Every carrier on PVD to DCA, 2,426 flights
These figures cover 670 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on PVD to DCA
Southwest flew 670 of the 2,426 flights on PVD to DCA, about 28% of it. Its 76.8% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two 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 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 | 42 | 85.7% | 23 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 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 | 1,062 | 66.1% | 95 min | 8.29% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.3% 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 Southwest 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 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am132 flights94.5%
- 8am–11am214 flights91.5%
- 11am–2pm9 flights—
- 2pm–5pm88 flights56.5%
- 5pm–8pm227 flights59.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.5% of the time, against 56.5% for the afternoon window. That is 38 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 227 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on PVD to DCA through the year
July is the worst month at 63.0% on time, 27 points below October, the best at 89.7%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 60 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.0%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on PVD to DCA runs when it is late
Southwest on PVD to DCA often beats the schedule: 174 of 647 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 150 late arrivals split 51 under half an hour, 49 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 50 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early174 flights26.9%
- Within 15 min323 flights49.9%
- 15–29 min late51 flights7.9%
- 30–59 min late49 flights7.6%
- 1–2 hours late35 flights5.4%
- 2+ hours late15 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 647 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
24 of 141 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. In the other direction, 33 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 Southwest on PVD to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 July 2026, 4 hours 47 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 July 2026 | 4 hours 47 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 1 April 2026 | 4 hours 44 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 17 May 2026 | 4 hours 33 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 July 2026 | 4 hours 16 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 29 April 2026 | 3 hours 52 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 9,127 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,127 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 to one. The split is drawn from 9,127 reported delay minutes.
47% 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 4,270 minutes out of 9,127, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.09% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.34%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 74.7% on time across 670 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. 670 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 Southwest on PVD to DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 670 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 76.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 647 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PVD to DCA, every carrier
- Southwest on DCA to PVD, the return leg
- Republic Airways on PVD to DCA73.9%
- American Airlines on PVD to DCA70.8%
- PSA Airlines on PVD to DCA66.1%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.