Carrier route record
YXBNA→DCA
Republic Airways · Nashville to Washington
- Flights
- 1,861
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on BNA to DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,861 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 1,653 at 72.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on BNA to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,796 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.90%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.3%
Every carrier on BNA to DCA, 4,330 flights
These figures cover 1,861 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 BNA to DCA
Republic flew 1,861 of the 4,330 flights on BNA to DCA, about 43% of it. Its 75.1% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 78.4% to PSA at 65.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 72.2% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 65.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 387 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 313 | 78.4% | 65 min | 5.43% | B− |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,861 | 75.1% | 62 min | 2.90% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 116 | 73.6% | 60 min | 5.17% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,653 | 72.2% | 52 min | 1.45% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 387 | 65.1% | 117 min | 10.08% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 10.1% 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.
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on BNA to DCA
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 24 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am411 flights79.9%
- 8am–11am323 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm356 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm32 flights—
- 5pm–8pm693 flights62.9%
- 8pm–5am46 flights82.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.9% on time, against 87.1% for the 8am–11am 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 693 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on BNA to DCA through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 60.1%. August is the strongest month at 85.9%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 26 points. April was the busiest month here, with 181 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 89.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.0%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
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 28,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% 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 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 27,891 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 11,000 minutes out of 28,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.90%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
8.2% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 562 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 83.5% on time across 1,861 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,861 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking Republic on BNA to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.90% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; 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. 1,796 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to DCA, every carrier
- Republic on DCA to BNA, the return leg
- American Airlines on BNA to DCA78.4%
- Envoy Air on BNA to DCA73.6%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to DCA72.2%
- PSA Airlines on BNA to DCA65.1%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- 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.