Carrier route record
YXDCA→BNA
Republic Airways · Washington to Nashville
- 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 DCA to BNA lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,845 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 1,707 at 74.4% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, Republic's DCA to BNA record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 45 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,799 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.7%
Every carrier on DCA to BNA, 4,384 flights
These figures cover 1,845 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on DCA to BNA
Republic flew 1,845 of the 4,384 flights on DCA to BNA, about 42% of it. Its 81.8% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 81.8% to PSA at 60.1%. 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 74.4% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 60.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 399 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,845 | 81.8% | 64 min | 2.44% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 143 | 76.6% | 58 min | 1.40% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,707 | 74.4% | 58 min | 2.23% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 290 | 63.8% | 82 min | 4.83% | D− |
| PSA Airlines | 399 | 60.1% | 78 min | 8.77% | D− |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.8% 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 DCA to BNA
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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 13 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am243 flights89.1%
- 8am–11am498 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm206 flights85.2%
- 2pm–5pm344 flights76.2%
- 5pm–8pm129 flights77.7%
- 8pm–5am425 flights78.0%
Scale runs 70% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.1% of the time, against 76.2% for the afternoon window. That is 13 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 498 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on DCA to BNA through the year
July is the worst month at 72.1% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 90.7%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. April was the busiest month here, with 182 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 77.4%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Republic on DCA to BNA runs when it is late
Republic on DCA to BNA often beats the schedule: 665 of 1,799 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 327 late arrivals split 105 under half an hour, 97 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 125 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early665 flights37.0%
- Within 15 min807 flights44.9%
- 15–29 min late105 flights5.8%
- 30–59 min late97 flights5.4%
- 1–2 hours late78 flights4.3%
- 2+ hours late47 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,799 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
52 of 316 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 63 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Republic on DCA to BNA
The latest arrival of the period was on 22 July 2026, 6 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 22 July 2026 | 6 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 January 2026 | 4 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 February 2026 | 4 hours 22 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 June 2026 | 4 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 August 2026 | 3 hours 55 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 21,017 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 89.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.44% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.9% 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 74.1% on time across 1,845 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.
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 DCA to BNA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 90.7% on time and July 72.1%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,799 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to BNA, every carrier
- Republic on BNA to DCA, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DCA to BNA76.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to BNA74.4%
- American Airlines on DCA to BNA63.8%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to BNA60.1%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- 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.