Carrier route record
YXDCA→BNA
Republic Airways · Washington to Nashville
- Flights
- 1,861
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on DCA to BNA lands a B, 6 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 an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,861 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 1,653 at 75.9% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, Republic's DCA to BNA record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 59 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,817 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.26%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.1%
Every carrier on DCA to BNA, 4,329 flights
These figures cover 1,861 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 BNA
Republic flew 1,861 of the 4,329 flights on DCA to BNA, about 43% of it. Its 83.5% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 83.5% to PSA at 59.2%. 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 75.9% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 59.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 387 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,861 | 83.5% | 61 min | 2.26% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,653 | 75.9% | 63 min | 2.00% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 115 | 75.7% | 65 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 313 | 65.5% | 75 min | 5.43% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 387 | 59.2% | 78 min | 10.08% | D− |
PSA Airlines cancels 10.1% 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
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 12 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am238 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am543 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm206 flights85.2%
- 2pm–5pm349 flights78.8%
- 5pm–8pm125 flights81.0%
- 8pm–5am400 flights78.3%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.6% of the time, against 78.3% for the overnight window. That is 12 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 543 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on DCA to BNA through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.7% 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 182 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 80.5%. 6 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 46% of the 18,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
46% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 18,187 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 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.26% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.0% 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 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. 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 75.1% on time across 1,861 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 1,861 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 March 76.2%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,817 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
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to BNA75.9%
- Envoy Air on DCA to BNA75.7%
- American Airlines on DCA to BNA65.5%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to BNA59.2%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.