Carrier route record
YXDCA→BOS
Republic Airways · Washington to Boston
- Flights
- 3,998
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 44%
- 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 BOS carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 3,998 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,233 at 65.5% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,822 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.40%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.1%
Every carrier on DCA to BOS, 9,104 flights
These figures cover 3,998 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on DCA to BOS
Republic flew 3,998 of the 9,104 flights on DCA to BOS, about 44% of it. Its 76.9% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 87.5% to JetBlue at 63.3%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 8 | 87.5% | 53 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 3,998 | 76.9% | 70 min | 4.40% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 241 | 73.1% | 65 min | 7.47% | C− |
| American Airlines | 2,233 | 65.5% | 84 min | 2.96% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,624 | 63.3% | 89 min | 5.14% | D− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 5.1% 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 BOS
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 30 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am799 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am889 flights86.6%
- 11am–2pm770 flights77.9%
- 2pm–5pm470 flights61.8%
- 5pm–8pm599 flights60.8%
- 8pm–5am471 flights66.4%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.8% on time, against 91.0% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 889 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on DCA to BOS through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 85.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 393 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.2%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Republic on DCA to BOS runs when it is late
Republic on DCA to BOS often beats the schedule: 1,332 of 3,822 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 884 late arrivals split 221 under half an hour, 293 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 370 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early1,332 flights34.9%
- Within 15 min1,606 flights42.0%
- 15–29 min late221 flights5.8%
- 30–59 min late293 flights7.7%
- 1–2 hours late241 flights6.3%
- 2+ hours late129 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 3,822 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
128 of 844 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. 168 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Republic on DCA to BOS
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 August 2026, 8 hours 54 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across August, July, March and June, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 August 2026 | 8 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 July 2026 | 8 hours 31 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 28 March 2026 | 5 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 5 hours 43 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 9 July 2026 | 5 hours 39 minutes | Extreme weather |
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 62,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%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 62,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 61,636 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 91.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.40%, against 1.89% 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
9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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 75.1% on time across 3,999 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 3,998 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 4.40% 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. 3,822 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 BOS73.1%
- American Airlines on DCA to BOS65.5%
- JetBlue Airways on DCA to BOS63.3%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.