Carrier route record
YXCMH→DCA
Republic Airways · Columbus to Washington
- Flights
- 971
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 47%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on CMH to DCA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 971 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Republic on CMH to DCA runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 98 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 935 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.3%
Every carrier on CMH to DCA, 2,055 flights
These figures cover 971 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 CMH to DCA
Republic flew 971 of the 2,055 flights on CMH to DCA, about 47% of it. Its 67.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 69.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 89.1% to Southwest at 60.2%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 315 | 89.1% | 45 min | 0.63% | A+ |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 971 | 67.8% | 57 min | 3.60% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 418 | 65.0% | 105 min | 6.46% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 351 | 60.2% | 67 min | 1.14% | 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 35 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–8am18 flights—
- 8am–11am159 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm350 flights68.9%
- 2pm–5pm141 flights51.9%
- 5pm–8pm303 flights63.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.3% of the time, against 51.9% for the afternoon window. That is 35 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 350 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on CMH to DCA through the year
December is the weak month at 38.3% on time, against 81.7% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. June was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 59.4%. 18 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. National Airspace System accounts for 48% of the 17,000 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.
- 48%National Airspace System
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
42% 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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 17,038 reported delay minutes.
48% 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 8,171 minutes out of 17,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.60%, 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. 9.9% 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 323 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.7% on time across 970 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 971 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 CMH to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.60% 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. 935 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CMH to DCA, every carrier
- Republic on DCA to CMH, the return leg
- Envoy Air on CMH to DCA89.1%
- PSA Airlines on CMH to DCA65.0%
- Southwest Airlines on CMH to DCA60.2%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) 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.