Carrier route record
YXDCA→CMH
Republic Airways · Washington to Columbus
- Flights
- 970
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 47%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on DCA to CMH lands a B, 3 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 970 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on DCA to CMH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 944 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.68%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.8%
Every carrier on DCA to CMH, 2,056 flights
These figures cover 970 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 CMH
Republic flew 970 of the 2,056 flights on DCA to CMH, about 47% of it. Its 80.7% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 80.7% to PSA at 71.2%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 970 | 80.7% | 66 min | 2.68% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 351 | 80.4% | 68 min | 0.28% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 316 | 74.5% | 95 min | 5.70% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 419 | 71.2% | 68 min | 5.49% | C− |
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on DCA to CMH
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 23 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–8am134 flights91.7%
- 8am–11am373 flights86.0%
- 11am–2pm81 flights79.2%
- 2pm–5pm150 flights68.7%
- 5pm–8pm226 flights73.4%
- 8pm–5am6 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.7% of the time, against 68.7% for the afternoon window. That is 23 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 373 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on DCA to CMH through the year
December is the weak month at 56.5% on time, against 88.7% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. June was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.5%. 13 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 55% of the 12,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 14%Carrier
- 13%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 11,925 reported delay minutes.
55% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 2.68%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
6.9% 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.
At 323 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.8% on time across 971 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 970 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 CMH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 970 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 944 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to CMH, every carrier
- Republic on CMH to DCA, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to CMH80.4%
- Envoy Air on DCA to CMH74.5%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to CMH71.2%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) 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.