Carrier route record
YXDCA→JFK
Republic Airways · Washington to New York
- Flights
- 2,041
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 82%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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: 6.0% 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 2,041 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
76.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,918 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.98%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.0%
Every carrier on DCA to JFK, 2,486 flights
These figures cover 2,041 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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 JFK
Republic flew 2,041 of the 2,486 flights on DCA to JFK, most of the route. Its 76.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 81.3% to Republic at 76.0%.
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 | 445 | 81.3% | 85 min | 6.07% | B− |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 2,041 | 76.0% | 71 min | 5.98% | B− |
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on DCA to JFK
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am602 flights92.4%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm552 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm173 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm686 flights63.1%
- 8pm–5am28 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.1% on time, against 92.4% 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 686 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 68.6%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Republic on DCA to JFK runs when it is late
Republic on DCA to JFK often beats the schedule: 635 of 1,918 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 460 late arrivals split 132 under half an hour, 154 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 174 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early635 flights33.1%
- Within 15 min823 flights42.9%
- 15–29 min late132 flights6.9%
- 30–59 min late154 flights8.0%
- 1–2 hours late101 flights5.3%
- 2+ hours late73 flights3.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,918 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
73 of 418 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. In the other direction, 115 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at JFK.
The worst days
Worst days for Republic on DCA to JFK
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 July 2026, 9 hours 9 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as extreme weather.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 July 2026 | 9 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 March 2026 | 8 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 October 2025 | 7 hours 38 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 6 September 2025 | 7 hours 15 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 22 June 2026 | 7 hours 6 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 33,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 12%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 32,671 reported delay minutes.
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 5.98%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in fifteen 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
9.1% 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 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 69.1% on time across 2,073 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 2,041 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 5.98% 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. 1,918 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 JFK81.3%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.