Carrier route record
YXDCA→JFK
Republic Airways · Washington to New York
- Flights
- 2,050
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 82%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on DCA to JFK carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.4% 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 2,050 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on DCA to JFK from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,940 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.37%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.1%
Every carrier on DCA to JFK, 2,496 flights
These figures cover 2,050 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% 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 JFK
Republic flew 2,050 of the 2,496 flights on DCA to JFK, most of the route. Its 77.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 81.9% to Republic at 77.2%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 446 | 81.9% | 76 min | 5.83% | B− |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 2,050 | 77.2% | 69 min | 5.37% | B− |
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on DCA to JFK
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am605 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm551 flights79.9%
- 2pm–5pm178 flights68.0%
- 5pm–8pm716 flights63.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.3% on time, against 92.8% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 716 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on DCA to JFK through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 85.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. September was the busiest month here, with 208 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.2%. 9 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 30,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% 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 30,000 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. The split is drawn from 30,423 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 9,985 minutes out of 30,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 5.37%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
8.7% 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 213 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 70.7% on time across 2,082 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,050 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 JFK
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.37% 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. 1,940 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to JFK, every carrier
- Republic on JFK to DCA, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on DCA to JFK81.9%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) 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.