Carrier route record

YXIND→DCA

Republic Airways · Indianapolis to Washington

Flights: 1,853
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 92%
Carriers: 4

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

Republic on IND to DCA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.7% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,853 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Republic on IND to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,779 completed flights

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.72%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

74.1%

Every carrier on IND to DCA, 2,021 flights

These figures cover 1,853 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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 IND to DCA

Republic flew 1,853 of the 2,021 flights on IND to DCA, most of the route. Its 74.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to PSA at 70.7%. Three 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 IND to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	5	100.0%	—	20.00%	A−
Republic Airways (this page)	1,853	74.3%	57 min	3.72%	C−
American Airlinesthin sample	28	74.1%	46 min	3.57%	C−
PSA Airlinesthin sample	135	70.7%	160 min	12.59%	C−

Flight by flight

Republic flight numbers on IND to DCA

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–8am507 flights85.8%
8am–11am495 flights82.9%
11am–2pm23 flights—
2pm–5pm220 flights57.7%
5pm–8pm312 flights57.0%
8pm–5am296 flights68.9%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.0% on time, against 85.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 507 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on IND to DCA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.June best, December worst

December is the weak month at 62.1% on time, against 84.2% in June. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 170 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 68.5%, a spread of 19 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Republic on IND to DCA runs when it is late

Republic on IND to DCA often beats the schedule: 447 of 1,779 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 457 late arrivals split 164 under half an hour, 149 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 144 an hour or more.

15+ min early447 flights25.1%
Within 15 min875 flights49.2%
15–29 min late164 flights9.2%
30–59 min late149 flights8.4%
1–2 hours late99 flights5.6%
2+ hours late45 flights2.5%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 1,779 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

58 of 319 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. In the other direction, 196 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 DCA.

The worst days

Worst days for Republic on IND to DCA

The latest arrival of the period was on 8 November 2025, 10 hours 59 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of Republic on IND to DCA in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
8 November 2025	10 hours 59 minutes	National Airspace System
21 July 2026	8 hours 25 minutes	National Airspace System
11 July 2026	4 hours 56 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
23 August 2026	4 hours 10 minutes	National Airspace System
1 December 2025	4 hours 1 minute	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why Republic runs late on this route

National Airspace System accounts for 50% of the 26,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
50%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
Carrier
16%
Extreme weather
2%

50% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 13,000 minutes out of 26,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 26,196 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 85.8% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.72%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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

8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 500 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.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.3% on time across 1,854 flights, 3 points above 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 3 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 1,853 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 IND to DCA

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.72% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 1,779 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures