Carrier route record

YXCAE→DCA

Republic Airways · Columbia to Washington

Flights: 138
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 13%
Carriers: 3

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

Republic on CAE to DCA lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 138 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Republic's CAE to DCA record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 135 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.17%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

72.9%

Every carrier on CAE to DCA, 1,093 flights

These figures cover 138 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 CAE to DCA

Republic flew 138 of the 1,093 flights on CAE to DCA, about 13% of it. Its 82.2% on time is 9 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 89.3% to PSA at 70.9%. One 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.

On-time performance by carrier on CAE to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	28	89.3%	54 min	0.00%	A+
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	138	82.2%	54 min	2.17%	B
PSA Airlines	927	70.9%	102 min	6.36%	C−

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 17 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–8am43 flights93.0%
8am–11am53 flights77.4%
11am–2pm41 flights76.3%
2pm–5pm1 flights—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 76.3% on time against 93.0% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 53 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on CAE to DCA through the year

Jul–Sep 202583 flights83.1%
Oct–Dec 202511 flights—
Jan–Mar 202638 flights74.3%
Apr–Jun 20266 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 90%. 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 82.2% on time across 138 flights.

Split by quarter, Republic on CAE to DCA logged 83 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 11 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 38 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 6 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 82.2% annual figure is the one to use.

Delay causes

Why Republic runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 1,301 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
49%
Carrier
28%
National Airspace System
21%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
1%

49% 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 1,301 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 39 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 1,301 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.0% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 2.17% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

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 about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 408 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 runs 83.2% on time across 137 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 138 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 CAE to DCA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 138 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 82.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 135 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