Flight number record
YX 4538
Republic Airways · New York to Washington
- Route
- JFK → DCA
- Departs
- 06:30
- Flights
- 284
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s YX 4538, check with Republic Airways. Republic Airways flies under contract for larger airlines, so a ticket for this flight may show a different airline code and number.
YX 4538 lands a B−, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 284 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 274 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.52%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
4.7%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 284 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Schedule
When YX 4538 flies
YX 4538 flies JFK to DCA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 06:30, used on 129 of 284 flights, with 08:29 (63 flights) and 08:25 (52 flights) next.
- Departs 06:30129 flights45.4%
- Departs 08:2963 flights22.2%
- Departs 08:2552 flights18.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 06:30 departure sits in the 5am–8am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 89.3%, and YX 4538 runs 11 points worse at 78.1%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.
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.
Against the route
YX 4538 next to JFK to DCA
Every carrier on JFK to DCA combined arrived on time 66.2% of the time across 2,518 flights, so YX 4538 is 12 points ahead of it. Republic flew 2,073 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 69.1% on time. Across its whole network Republic Airways managed 78.1%, close to this flight's figure.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| YX 4538thin sample | 284 | 78.1% | 49 min | 3.52% | B− |
| All Republic Airways on JFK–DCA | 2,073 | 69.1% | 69 min | 6.22% | C− |
| All carriers on JFK–DCA | 2,518 | 66.2% | 72 min | 6.39% | C− |
| Republic Airways, whole network | 364,452 | 78.1% | 74 min | 4.55% | B− |
Across the year
YX 4538 quarter by quarter
YX 4538 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 69.4%, a swing of 24 points on roughly 57 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202585 flights74.7%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights69.4%
- Apr–Jun 202646 flights84.4%
- Jul–Sep 202633 flights87.1%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
By weekday, YX 4538 did best on Monday at 92.5% on time and worst on Wednesday at 68.3%. Each day rests on about 41 flights, so a gap of 24 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late YX 4538 runs when it is late
YX 4538 often beats the schedule: 71 of 274 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 31 of the 60 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 13 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early71 flights25.9%
- Within 15 min143 flights52.2%
- 15–29 min late31 flights11.3%
- 30–59 min late16 flights5.8%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights2.9%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 274 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 30 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 3 made it up before arrival. 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 YX 4538
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 April 2026, 6 hours 19 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 April 2026 | 6 hours 19 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 February 2026 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 December 2025 | 3 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 November 2025 | 2 hours 51 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 10 July 2026 | 2 hours 13 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why YX 4538 runs late
National Airspace System accounts for 48% of the 2,963 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
48% 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 1,415 minutes out of 2,963, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 2,963 delay minutes reported on YX 4538.
Cancellations run at 3.52%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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 routes
What a delay on this flight costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.7% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The same number turns up on two other city pairs in the data, including LGA to DCA (28) and LGA to PIT (23), but none flew often enough under YX 4538 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to JFK to DCA only.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 284 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 YX 4538
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on YX 4538: 3.52% of its 284 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about 50 minutes, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to DCA, every carrier and departure
- DCA to JFK, the return direction
- Republic Airways 5699 on the same route56.0%
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on-time record
- Every Republic Airways flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
A flight number here means Republic Airways’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
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.