Flight profile · PSA Airlines
OH5656
Washington (DCA) to Milwaukee (MKE) · scheduled 10:25 PM – 9:10 PM
How OH5656 performs
941 operations, October 2023 – July 2026.
OH5656 arrived on time 65.5% of the time, against 78.4% for all DCA → MKE flights, so this departure is 12.9 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against PSA Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 7.1 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 941 operations, October 2023 – July 2026 · If OH5656 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where OH5656 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OH5656 | 65.5% | 8.71% | -1 min | 14.8% | 941 |
| PSA Airlines on DCA → MKE | 72.6% | 5.67% | -6 min | 11.9% | 1,853 |
| All DCA → MKE flights | 78.4% | 3.43% | -7 min | 8.0% | 3,993 |
OH5656 has cancelled 8.71% of its scheduled departures (82 of 941), against 3.43% for all DCA → MKE flights — this specific departure cancels 5.3 percentage points more often than the route as a whole. Different flight numbers on the same route can carry different aircraft, crews and schedules, so this is a fact about OH5656 specifically, not about the route it flies.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · October 2023 – July 2026
Why OH5656 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for OH5656 on DCA → MKE. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering October 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies OH5656 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, OH5656 pushed back an average of 50 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 3 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into DCA just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 818 of 862 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| OH5656 | 35% | 60% | 15% |
| Network, same turn | 17% | 68% | 9% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 60 to 89 minutes. How often OH5656’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often OH5656 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering October 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves DCA late, does that still matter by the time it reaches MKE?
OH5656 pushes back an average of 26.7 minutes late and reaches the gate at MKE an average of 20.5 minutes late. The 6.3 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 24.2 minutes on the taxiways at DCA, 3.8 minutes longer than a typical DCA departure in the same hour.
On arrival at MKE, OH5656 spends 5.4 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is about what any arrival at MKE spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached MKE. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 22,360 departures from DCA scheduled in the clock hour OH5656 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at MKE (87,872 flights), not just OH5656’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · October 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves DCA
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. OH5656 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 22,360 departures from DCA are scheduled in the 10 PM–11 PM hour over the period, against 435,076 across the whole day.
OH5656 is scheduled out of DCA at 10:25 PM, in the 10 PM–11 PM bank. Departures from DCA in that hour arrive on time 68.4% of the time against 76.5% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.1 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from DCA to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · October 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does OH5656 run worse on particular days?
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 15.2 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · October 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes OH5656 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| BTR→DFW Baton Rouge to Dallas–Fort Worth | December 6–13, 2025 | 2 | — |
| DCA→CMH Washington to Columbus | November 29, 2025 | 1 | — |
| DCA→TLH Washington to Tallahassee | November 27, 2025 | 1 | — |
| DCA→SDF Washington to Louisville | July 2, 2023 – September 5, 2023 | 24 | — |
| SDF→DCA Louisville to Washington | July 2, 2023 – September 5, 2023 | 24 | — |
| BTV→DCA Burlington to Washington | July 5, 2023 – August 3, 2023 | 18 | — |
| DCA→BTV Washington to Burlington | July 5, 2023 – August 3, 2023 | 18 | — |
| DCA→RDU Washington to Raleigh–Durham | July 7–28, 2023 | 4 | — |
| RDU→DCA Raleigh–Durham to Washington | July 7–28, 2023 | 4 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route OH5656 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
86 min late
against a median of 1 min early
OH5656 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 1 min early, but the worst tenth are 87 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 941 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering October 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OH5637 | PSA Airlines | 81.0% | 10 min early | 729 |
| OH5656 this flight | PSA Airlines | 65.5% | 1 min early | 941 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. OH5656 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 941 records of OH5656 operating DCA → MKE, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
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