Regional operator · on-time record
YX
Republic Airways
- Flights
- 361,482
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Airports
- 25
- US rank
- #6 by volume
Republic Airways carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 361,482 flights, of which Louisville (SDF) flew 5,694 at 84.6% on time.
Louisville (SDF) is the most reliable of the 25 airports covered here at 84.6% on time across 5,694 flights.
Republic Airways flies under mainline brands rather than selling tickets in its own name, so a flight in this record may have been booked as American, Delta or United. The DOT reports it under the operating carrier, which is why it appears here separately.
Key figures
On time
78.5%
National average is 77.6%
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
4.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Largest base
LGA
56,489 departures, 75.3% on time
These figures cover 361,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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.
Airport by airport
Where Republic Airways runs well, and where it does not
The choice of airport is not cosmetic here. Louisville (SDF) arrives on time 84.6% of the time; Raleigh (RDU) manages 74.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 7,682 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airport | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LGA · New York | 56,489 | 75.3% | 68 min | 5.46% | B− |
| BOS · Boston | 33,650 | 78.1% | 67 min | 3.88% | B− |
| ORD · Chicago | 32,164 | 76.2% | 73 min | 3.56% | B− |
| DCA · Washington | 27,126 | 76.2% | 67 min | 4.33% | B− |
| EWR · Newark | 23,806 | 83.3% | 71 min | 4.62% | B− |
| JFK · New York | 15,189 | 78.0% | 72 min | 4.45% | B− |
| IND · Indianapolis | 13,651 | 81.5% | 66 min | 2.94% | B |
| CMH · Columbus | 13,053 | 82.0% | 66 min | 3.05% | B− |
| PIT · Pittsburgh | 11,605 | 84.1% | 66 min | 2.90% | B |
| IAD · Washington | 8,917 | 81.8% | 79 min | 2.69% | B |
| RDU · Raleigh | 7,682 | 74.3% | 75 min | 4.13% | C− |
| BNA · Nashville | 7,222 | 75.2% | 68 min | 3.53% | B− |
| PHL · Philadelphia | 7,018 | 81.7% | 75 min | 2.95% | B |
| DTW · Detroit | 6,170 | 81.0% | 77 min | 3.40% | B− |
| SDF · Louisville | 5,694 | 84.6% | 67 min | 2.58% | B |
| CVG · Cincinnati | 4,919 | 81.1% | 71 min | 3.19% | B− |
| CLE · Cleveland | 4,849 | 79.6% | 73 min | 4.66% | B− |
| RIC · Richmond | 4,803 | 76.7% | 81 min | 4.79% | B− |
| CLT · Charlotte | 3,884 | 82.4% | 82 min | 3.66% | B− |
| ORF · Norfolk | 3,755 | 79.3% | 78 min | 5.27% | B− |
| PWM · Portland | 3,493 | 82.6% | 82 min | 3.75% | B− |
| BUF · Buffalo | 3,311 | 79.9% | 81 min | 4.29% | B− |
| STL · St. Louis | 3,188 | 79.5% | 84 min | 4.42% | B− |
| MEM · Memphis | 3,048 | 79.9% | 79 min | 3.51% | B− |
| ATL · Atlanta | 2,880 | 77.0% | 78 min | 4.24% | B− |
New York (LGA) cancels 5.5% 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.
Route by route
Busiest Republic Airways routes
These are the 25 routes Republic Airways flies most often, each against its network-wide 78.5%. Route-level variation inside a single airline is routinely wider than the gap between two airlines nationally.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LGA to BOS | 6,712 | 73.6% | 68 min | 5.44% | C− |
| BOS to LGA | 6,708 | 76.6% | 75 min | 5.81% | B− |
| DCA to LGA | 4,755 | 67.4% | 73 min | 5.93% | C− |
| LGA to DCA | 4,751 | 68.4% | 62 min | 5.51% | C− |
| BOS to DCA | 3,985 | 75.6% | 62 min | 4.22% | B− |
| DCA to BOS | 3,983 | 77.9% | 70 min | 4.22% | B− |
| JFK to BOS | 2,916 | 77.8% | 74 min | 4.39% | B− |
| BOS to JFK | 2,915 | 75.1% | 66 min | 5.01% | B− |
| LGA to CMH | 2,883 | 77.2% | 76 min | 4.61% | B− |
| CMH to LGA | 2,882 | 79.5% | 71 min | 4.51% | B− |
| LGA to PIT | 2,863 | 79.4% | 75 min | 4.54% | B− |
| PIT to LGA | 2,861 | 81.7% | 71 min | 4.89% | B− |
| ORD to IND | 2,716 | 76.5% | 79 min | 3.35% | B− |
| IND to ORD | 2,713 | 82.4% | 70 min | 2.06% | B |
| IND to LGA | 2,499 | 82.2% | 64 min | 4.28% | B− |
| LGA to IND | 2,499 | 76.6% | 77 min | 5.28% | B− |
| RIC to LGA | 2,172 | 73.2% | 79 min | 5.71% | C− |
| LGA to RIC | 2,170 | 76.2% | 65 min | 6.36% | B− |
| LGA to RDU | 2,135 | 73.3% | 64 min | 5.85% | C− |
| RDU to LGA | 2,134 | 69.3% | 83 min | 6.42% | C− |
| JFK to DCA | 2,082 | 70.7% | 67 min | 5.38% | C− |
| DCA to JFK | 2,050 | 77.2% | 69 min | 5.37% | B− |
| CMH to EWR | 2,019 | 81.9% | 63 min | 3.91% | B− |
| EWR to CMH | 2,018 | 83.7% | 87 min | 4.56% | B− |
| BOS to IND | 1,962 | 81.9% | 68 min | 2.24% | B |
Departure window
The best time of day to fly Republic Airways
Departure time matters more here than the choice of airport. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against 10 points between the best and worst airport. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am53,995 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am70,676 flights85.7%
- 11am–2pm68,163 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm66,161 flights73.8%
- 5pm–8pm65,786 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am36,701 flights71.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.8% of the time, against 68.9% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 70,676 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic Airways through the calendar
Republic's year swings by 15 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 69.3% on time, against 84.4% in May. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 32,203 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.0%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
What holds Republic Airways up
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 5.36 million reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% 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 5.36 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 5,358,708 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 88.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.08%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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.
8.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
361,482 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
What to do with this
Booking Republic Airways
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.08% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 345,959 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Republic Airways reliability questions
How often is Republic Airways delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.5% of the 361,482 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airport does Republic Airways run best from?
Louisville (SDF) leads at 84.6% on time across 5,694 flights. Raleigh (RDU) is at the other end on 74.3%, a gap of 10 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Republic Airways?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.9%, 20 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on Republic Airways?
December is the weakest month at 69.3% on time, compared with 84.4% in May. Across the year that is 15 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- Republic Airways at LGA — New York75.3%
- Republic Airways at BOS — Boston78.1%
- Republic Airways at ORD — Chicago76.2%
- Republic Airways at DCA — Washington76.2%
- Republic Airways at EWR — Newark83.3%
- LGA to BOS route record73.6%
- BOS to LGA route record76.6%
- DCA to LGA route record67.4%
- LGA to DCA route record68.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.