Carrier route record

YXDCA→PHL

Republic Airways · Washington to Philadelphia

Flights: 218
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 27%
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 PHL lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 218 flights, with a median arrival 16 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Republic's DCA to PHL record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 51 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 214 completed flights

Avg delay

44 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.83%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

65.0%

Every carrier on DCA to PHL, 819 flights

These figures cover 218 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 16 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 PHL

Republic flew 218 of the 819 flights on DCA to PHL, about 27% of it. Its 82.7% on time is 18 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 65.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 82.7% to PSA at 58.5%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to PHL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	218	82.7%	44 min	1.83%	B
PSA Airlines	601	58.5%	88 min	3.83%	D−

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 26 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–8am118 flights96.6%
8am–11am1 flights—
11am–2pm57 flights70.2%
2pm–5pm10 flights—
5pm–8pm27 flights—
8pm–5am5 flights—

Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 70.2% on time against 96.6% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 118 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on DCA to PHL through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights94.5%
Oct–Dec 202569 flights79.7%
Apr–Jun 202657 flights66.7%

Scale runs 60% to 100%. 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 82.7% on time across 218 flights.

Republic on DCA to PHL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 94.5% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 66.7%, a swing of 28 points on roughly 73 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 90.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.0%. 16 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 52% of the 1,640 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
52%
Carrier
27%
National Airspace System
20%
Extreme weather
1%

52% 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 1,640 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 52 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 1,640 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 96.6% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.83% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

At 120 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 66.0% on time across 217 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. 218 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 PHL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 218 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 82.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 214 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