Carrier route record

YXDCA→MCI

Republic Airways · Washington to Kansas City

Flights: 152
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 8%
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 MCI sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 152 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 999 at 72.7% on time.

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

On time

75.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 151 completed flights

Avg delay

44 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.66%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

71.7%

Every carrier on DCA to MCI, 1,927 flights

These figures cover 152 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 MCI

Republic flew 152 of the 1,927 flights on DCA to MCI, about 8% of it. Its 75.5% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 84.0% to PSA at 68.2%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to MCI
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlinesthin sample	25	84.0%	42 min	0.00%	B+
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	152	75.5%	44 min	0.66%	B+
Southwest Airlines	999	72.7%	65 min	1.80%	C
Envoy Airthin sample	168	71.6%	64 min	3.57%	C−
PSA Airlines	583	68.2%	69 min	6.17%	C−

PSA Airlines cancels 6.2% 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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 152 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am22 flights—
11am–2pm24 flights—
2pm–5pm30 flights80.0%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am76 flights76.3%

Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 2pm–5pm window is the strongest at 80.0% on time. The full set of windows spans 4 points.

Across the year

Republic on DCA to MCI through the year

Jul–Sep 202569 flights76.8%
Oct–Dec 202577 flights75.0%
Apr–Jun 20266 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 80%. 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 75.5% on time across 152 flights.

Split by quarter, Republic on DCA to MCI logged 69 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 77 flights in Oct–Dec 2025 and 6 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 75.5% annual figure is the one to use.

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 1,623 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
34%
National Airspace System
23%
Carrier
22%
Extreme weather
21%

Extreme weather accounts for 21% 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 3.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 1,623 reported delay minutes.

34% 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 1,623 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 2 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 are rare at 0.66%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.3% 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 roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 949 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 74.8% on time across 152 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 152 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 MCI

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 152 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 75.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 151 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