Carrier route record
YXBDL→DCA
Republic Airways · Hartford to Washington
- Flights
- 415
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on BDL to DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 415 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Republic on BDL to DCA runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 76 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 400 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.37%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.0%
Every carrier on BDL to DCA, 1,736 flights
These figures cover 415 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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.
Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on BDL to DCA
Republic flew 415 of the 1,736 flights on BDL to DCA, about 24% of it. Its 70.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 69.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 70.2% to Envoy at 55.2%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 958 | 70.2% | 92 min | 6.58% | C− |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 415 | 70.0% | 62 min | 3.37% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 324 | 65.2% | 91 min | 5.86% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 39 | 55.2% | 61 min | 23.08% | D− |
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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am108 flights88.0%
- 8am–11am12 flights—
- 11am–2pm68 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm188 flights54.0%
- 8pm–5am38 flights73.0%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.0% on time, against 88.0% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 188 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on BDL to DCA through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025103 flights67.7%
- Oct–Dec 2025106 flights70.8%
- Jan–Mar 202654 flights54.9%
- Apr–Jun 2026152 flights76.2%
Scale runs 45% to 80%. 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 70.0% on time across 415 flights.
Republic on BDL to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 76.2% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 54.9%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 104 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 86.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 58.5%. 28 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 43% of the 7,470 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 40%National Airspace System
- 11%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
43% 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 7,470 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 7,470 reported delay minutes.
40% 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 2,979 minutes out of 7,470, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.37%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 313 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.1% on time across 415 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 415 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 BDL to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.37% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 400 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BDL to DCA, every carrier
- Republic on DCA to BDL, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on BDL to DCA70.2%
- American Airlines on BDL to DCA65.2%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.