Flight number record

YX 4538

Republic Airways · New York to Washington

Route: JFK → DCA
Departs: 06:30
Flights: 313
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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−, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 313 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

On time

79.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 303 completed flights

Avg delay

51 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.19%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

4.3%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 313 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

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 131 of 313 flights, with 08:29 (63 flights) and 08:25 (52 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 06:30131 flights41.9%
Departs 08:2963 flights20.1%
Departs 08:2552 flights16.6%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

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 10 points worse at 79.5%. Early departures usually start with an aircraft that has not flown yet that day, which is most of why the window does well.

Against the route

YX 4538 next to JFK to DCA

Every carrier on JFK to DCA combined arrived on time 67.8% of the time across 2,528 flights, so YX 4538 is 12 points ahead of it. Republic flew 2,082 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 70.7% on time. Across its whole network Republic Airways managed 78.5%, close to this flight's figure.

YX 4538 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
YX 4538thin sample	313	79.5%	51 min	3.19%	B−
All Republic Airways on JFK–DCA	2,082	70.7%	67 min	5.38%	C−
All carriers on JFK–DCA	2,528	67.8%	71 min	5.34%	C−
Republic Airways, whole network	361,482	78.5%	72 min	4.08%	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 91.1% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 69.4%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 78 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 202592 flights91.1%
Oct–Dec 202585 flights74.7%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights69.4%
Apr–Jun 202646 flights84.4%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, YX 4538 did best on Tuesday at 93.0% on time and worst on Wednesday at 68.9%. Each day rests on about 45 flights, so a gap of 24 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why YX 4538 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 3,166 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

National Airspace System
47%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
Carrier
17%

36% 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 3,166 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 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 3,166 delay minutes reported on YX 4538.

Cancellations run at 3.19%, against 1.81% 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 4.3% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 one other city pair in the data, including LGA to DCA (28), 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. 313 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: 3.19% of its 313 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs roughly 50 minutes, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

Where to go next

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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures