Carrier route record
YXBNA→DCA
Republic Airways · Nashville to Washington
- Flights
- 1,845
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 42%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,845 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 1,708 at 68.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
74.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,779 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.09%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.3%
Every carrier on BNA to DCA, 4,387 flights
These figures cover 1,845 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on BNA to DCA
Republic flew 1,845 of the 4,387 flights on BNA to DCA, about 42% of it. Its 74.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 74.1% to PSA at 67.3%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,845 | 74.1% | 65 min | 3.09% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 291 | 72.9% | 80 min | 4.81% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 144 | 71.1% | 58 min | 6.25% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,708 | 68.9% | 52 min | 1.52% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 399 | 67.3% | 121 min | 7.52% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.5% 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
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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 23 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am431 flights79.6%
- 8am–11am273 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm379 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm26 flights—
- 5pm–8pm712 flights63.9%
- 8pm–5am24 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.9% on time, against 86.5% 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 712 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on BNA to DCA through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 81.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. April was the busiest month here, with 181 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.3%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Republic on BNA to DCA runs when it is late
Republic on BNA to DCA often beats the schedule: 489 of 1,779 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 460 late arrivals split 163 under half an hour, 140 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 157 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early489 flights27.5%
- Within 15 min830 flights46.7%
- 15–29 min late163 flights9.2%
- 30–59 min late140 flights7.9%
- 1–2 hours late93 flights5.2%
- 2+ hours late64 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,779 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
37 of 308 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 12% of them. In the other direction, 189 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 Republic on BNA to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 August 2026, 8 hours 54 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 August 2026 | 8 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 July 2026 | 7 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 June 2026 | 6 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 January 2026 | 6 hours 21 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 July 2026 | 5 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
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 30,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%National Airspace System
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 29,883 reported delay minutes.
38% 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 30,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.09%, 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 stage length
What a delay here costs
8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.8% on time across 1,845 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 1,845 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 3.09% 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. 1,779 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 DCA72.9%
- Envoy Air on BNA to DCA71.1%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to DCA68.9%
- PSA Airlines on BNA to DCA67.3%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.