Carrier route record
OHROC→DCA
PSA Airlines · Rochester to Washington
- Flights
- 820
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 79%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with PSA Airlines.
PSA on ROC to DCA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 7.2% 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 D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 820 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so PSA on ROC to DCA runs 14 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 138 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
63.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 759 completed flights
Avg delay
115 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.20%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
67.0%
Every carrier on ROC to DCA, 1,033 flights
These figures cover 820 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 17.7% 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 ROC to DCA
PSA flew 820 of the 1,033 flights on ROC to DCA, most of the route. Its 63.5% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 67.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 84.5% to PSA at 63.5%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 58 | 84.5% | 55 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 155 | 78.5% | 85 min | 6.45% | B− |
| PSA Airlines (this page) | 820 | 63.5% | 115 min | 7.20% | D− |
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 43 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am227 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm297 flights58.1%
- 2pm–5pm14 flights—
- 5pm–8pm281 flights48.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.0% on time, against 90.6% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 297 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
PSA on ROC to DCA through the year
February is the weak month at 43.1% on time, against 85.7% 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. August was the busiest month here, with 87 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 73.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 56.3%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late PSA on ROC to DCA runs when it is late
PSA on ROC to DCA often beats the schedule: 215 of 759 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 277 late arrivals split 70 under half an hour, 73 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 134 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early215 flights28.3%
- Within 15 min267 flights35.2%
- 15–29 min late70 flights9.2%
- 30–59 min late73 flights9.6%
- 1–2 hours late59 flights7.8%
- 2+ hours late75 flights9.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 759 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 223 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 21 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 75 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 ROC to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 December 2025, 26 hours 12 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across December, May, June and March, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 December 2025 | 26 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 May 2026 | 20 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 December 2025 | 19 hours 29 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 11 June 2026 | 17 hours 13 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 2 March 2026 | 16 hours 49 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why PSA runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 16%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 31,864 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 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 7.20%, against 1.89% 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
17.7% 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 296 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 64.9% on time across 820 flights, within about a point 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. 820 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 ROC to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.20% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 759 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.