Carrier route record
YXDCA→BOS
Republic Airways · Washington to Boston
- Flights
- 3,983
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 44%
- 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 BOS carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 3,983 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,264 at 66.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on DCA to BOS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,815 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.22%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.4%
Every carrier on DCA to BOS, 9,081 flights
These figures cover 3,983 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 DCA to BOS
Republic flew 3,983 of the 9,081 flights on DCA to BOS, about 44% of it. Its 77.9% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 77.9% to JetBlue at 65.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 3,983 | 77.9% | 70 min | 4.22% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 198 | 76.9% | 75 min | 6.06% | B− |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 3 | 66.7% | 53 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 2,264 | 66.1% | 81 min | 3.05% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,633 | 65.8% | 90 min | 3.91% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.9% 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 BOS
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 28 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–8am757 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am865 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm763 flights80.9%
- 2pm–5pm557 flights63.1%
- 5pm–8pm544 flights63.6%
- 8pm–5am497 flights67.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.1% of the time, against 63.1% for the afternoon window. That is 28 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 865 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on DCA to BOS through the year
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 66.1%. August is the strongest month at 87.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 21 points. July was the busiest month here, with 410 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.9%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 59,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% 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 24,000 minutes out of 59,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 59,032 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 91.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.22%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% 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 399 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 75.6% on time across 3,985 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,983 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 BOS
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.22% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 3,815 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to BOS, every carrier
- Republic on BOS to DCA, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DCA to BOS76.9%
- American Airlines on DCA to BOS66.1%
- JetBlue Airways on DCA to BOS65.8%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) 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.