Carrier route record

YXDCA→ATL

Republic Airways · Washington to Atlanta

Flights: 461
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 7%
Carriers: 6

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

Republic on DCA to ATL lands a B−, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 461 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 3,838 at 80.9% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on DCA to ATL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

81.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 443 completed flights

Avg delay

52 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.69%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.8%

Every carrier on DCA to ATL, 6,813 flights

These figures cover 461 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 DCA to ATL

Republic flew 461 of the 6,813 flights on DCA to ATL, about 7% of it. Its 81.3% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 82.4% to American at 67.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 80.9% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 68.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,055 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to ATL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	259	82.4%	67 min	1.54%	B
Republic Airways (this page)	461	81.3%	52 min	3.69%	B−
Delta Air Lines	3,838	80.9%	88 min	2.81%	B
Southwest Airlines	1,139	79.1%	62 min	2.11%	B
PSA Airlines	1,055	68.8%	81 min	8.25%	C−
American Airlinesthin sample	61	67.8%	102 min	1.64%	C

PSA Airlines cancels 8.3% 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.

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 20 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am66 flights92.4%
8am–11am125 flights90.2%
11am–2pm67 flights75.0%
2pm–5pm26 flights—
5pm–8pm104 flights74.5%
8pm–5am73 flights72.1%

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.4% of the time, against 72.1% for the overnight window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 125 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on DCA to ATL through the year

Jul–Sep 202580 flights89.3%
Oct–Dec 2025127 flights82.3%
Jan–Mar 2026112 flights75.2%
Apr–Jun 2026142 flights80.6%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. 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 81.3% on time across 461 flights.

Republic on DCA to ATL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 89.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 75.2%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 115 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 77.6%. 8 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 44% of the 4,327 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
44%
Carrier
21%
Extreme weather
19%
National Airspace System
16%

Extreme weather accounts for 19% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 4,327 reported delay minutes.

44% 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 4,327 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 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.

Cancellations run at 3.69%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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

5.0% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 547 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 73.3% on time across 462 flights, 8 points below 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 461 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 DCA to ATL

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.69% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you roughly 50 minutes; 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. 443 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