Carrier route record

YXDCA→DTW

Republic Airways · Washington to Detroit

Flights: 271
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 9%
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 DTW lands a B−, 4 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 271 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,745 at 79.6% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on DCA to DTW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

81.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 260 completed flights

Avg delay

72 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.32%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.6%

Every carrier on DCA to DTW, 2,979 flights

These figures cover 271 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Republic against every carrier on DCA to DTW

Republic flew 271 of the 2,979 flights on DCA to DTW, about 9% of it. Its 81.2% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to PSA at 69.5%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 79.6% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 69.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 957 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to DTW
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	2	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	271	81.2%	72 min	3.32%	B−
Delta Air Lines	1,745	79.6%	88 min	2.46%	B
American Airlinesthin sample	4	75.0%	396 min	0.00%	B+
PSA Airlines	957	69.5%	85 min	6.37%	C−

PSA Airlines cancels 6.4% 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.

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 14 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am3 flights—
8am–11am25 flights—
11am–2pm117 flights87.1%
2pm–5pm32 flights—
5pm–8pm52 flights72.9%
8pm–5am42 flights82.1%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 87.1% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 72.9%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 117 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on DCA to DTW through the year

Jul–Sep 202541 flights87.8%
Oct–Dec 202527 flights—
Jan–Mar 2026111 flights71.6%
Apr–Jun 202692 flights87.8%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 81.2% on time across 271 flights.

Republic on DCA to DTW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 87.8% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 71.6%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 90 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.3%. 9 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 67% of the 3,513 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
67%
Extreme weather
13%
National Airspace System
11%
Carrier
10%

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 3,513 reported delay minutes.

67% 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 3,513 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 3.32%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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

6.5% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 405 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 64.2% on time across 271 flights, 17 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 17 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 271 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 DTW

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.32% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 260 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures