Carrier route record
YXDCA→RDU
Republic Airways · Washington to Raleigh
- Flights
- 495
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on DCA to RDU sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 495 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Envoy Air, flew 448 at 74.2% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Republic on DCA to RDU runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 68 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 463 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.3%
Every carrier on DCA to RDU, 1,990 flights
These figures cover 495 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% 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 RDU
Republic flew 495 of the 1,990 flights on DCA to RDU, about 25% of it. Its 70.8% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 74.2% to American at 65.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 74.2% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 66.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 840 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 448 | 74.2% | 74 min | 4.02% | C− |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 495 | 70.8% | 70 min | 6.46% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 840 | 66.8% | 64 min | 5.12% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 207 | 65.2% | 74 min | 2.90% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.1% 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 17 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am58 flights79.2%
- 11am–2pm78 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm155 flights72.5%
- 5pm–8pm120 flights64.5%
- 8pm–5am84 flights62.0%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.0% on time, against 79.2% for the 8am–11am 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 155 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on DCA to RDU through the year
- Jul–Sep 202572 flights65.0%
- Oct–Dec 2025143 flights67.9%
- Jan–Mar 2026183 flights65.7%
- Apr–Jun 202697 flights87.6%
Scale runs 55% 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 70.8% on time across 495 flights.
Republic on DCA to RDU did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 87.6% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 65.0%, a swing of 23 points on roughly 124 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 77.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 64.3%. 14 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 64% of the 9,455 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.
- 64%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 15%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
64% 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 9,455 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 9,455 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 79.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.46%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 227 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 59.4% on time across 497 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 495 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 RDU
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.46% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 463 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to RDU, every carrier
- Republic on RDU to DCA, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DCA to RDU74.2%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to RDU66.8%
- American Airlines on DCA to RDU65.2%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) 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.