Carrier route record

YXATL→DCA

Republic Airways · Atlanta to Washington

Flights: 462
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 7%
Carriers: 6

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.

Republic on ATL to DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 462 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, PSA Airlines, flew 1,053 at 74.7% on time.

PSA Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 74.7% on time across 1,053 flights.

On time

73.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 446 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.25%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

70.1%

Every carrier on ATL to DCA, 6,812 flights

These figures cover 462 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.

Carrier by carrier

Republic against every carrier on ATL to DCA

Republic flew 462 of the 6,812 flights on ATL to DCA, about 7% of it. Its 73.3% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 74.7% to Delta at 67.3%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. PSA Airlines arrives on time 74.7% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 67.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,838 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on ATL to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PSA Airlines	1,053	74.7%	125 min	7.69%	C−
Southwest Airlines	1,139	73.5%	66 min	1.76%	C
Republic Airways (this page)	462	73.3%	54 min	3.25%	C−
Envoy Airthin sample	259	72.2%	62 min	3.86%	C−
American Airlinesthin sample	61	68.3%	171 min	1.64%	C
Delta Air Lines	3,838	67.3%	60 min	2.58%	C

PSA Airlines cancels 7.7% 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.

Departure window

When Republic runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 40 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am67 flights89.1%
8am–11am81 flights90.1%
11am–2pm157 flights68.8%
2pm–5pm33 flights50.0%
5pm–8pm26 flights—
8pm–5am98 flights66.7%

Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.1% of the time, against 50.0% for the afternoon window. That is 40 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 157 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on ATL to DCA through the year

Jul–Sep 202581 flights87.2%
Oct–Dec 2025127 flights78.2%
Jan–Mar 2026112 flights54.6%
Apr–Jun 2026142 flights75.7%

Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 73.3% on time across 462 flights.

Republic on ATL to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 87.2% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 54.6%, a swing of 33 points on roughly 116 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.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 66.2%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Republic runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 6,412 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
53%
National Airspace System
34%
Carrier
12%
Extreme weather
0%
Security
0%

53% 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 6,412 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 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 6,412 reported delay minutes.

34% 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 2,193 minutes out of 6,412, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 3.25%, 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 stage length

What a delay here costs

5.2% 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 last roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 547 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.3% on time across 461 flights, 8 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 8 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 462 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 Republic on ATL to DCA

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.25% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you roughly 55 minutes; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 446 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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