Carrier route record

YXDTW→IAD

Republic Airways · Detroit to Washington

Flights: 228
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 20%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.

Republic on DTW to IAD earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs roughly 55 minutes. That rests on 228 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Republic's DTW to IAD record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 64 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 225 completed flights

Avg delay

53 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.32%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.0%

Every carrier on DTW to IAD, 1,115 flights

These figures cover 228 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 DTW to IAD

Republic flew 228 of the 1,115 flights on DTW to IAD, about 20% of it. Its 84.0% on time is 10 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 88.2% to SkyWest at 68.5%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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 DTW to IAD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Linesthin sample	94	88.2%	82 min	1.06%	A
United Airlinesthin sample	39	87.2%	127 min	0.00%	A+
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	228	84.0%	53 min	1.32%	B
SkyWest Airlines	754	68.5%	92 min	1.33%	C

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 19 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–8am57 flights87.5%
8am–11am41 flights95.1%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm32 flights87.5%
5pm–8pm98 flights76.0%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 95.1% of the time, against 76.0% for the evening window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 98 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on DTW to IAD through the year

Jul–Sep 202543 flights90.7%
Oct–Dec 202548 flights77.1%
Jan–Mar 202675 flights82.2%
Apr–Jun 202662 flights86.9%

Scale runs 70% 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 84.0% on time across 228 flights.

Republic on DTW to IAD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 90.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 77.1%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 57 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, Sunday is the strongest day at 90.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.9%. 11 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 46% of the 1,899 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
46%
Carrier
31%
National Airspace System
23%

46% 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 1,899 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 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 1,899 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 95.1% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.32% 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 4.9% 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 383 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 78.3% on time across 209 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 228 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 DTW to IAD

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 228 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 84.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 225 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