Carrier route record

YXJFK→DCA

Republic Airways · New York to Washington

Flights: 2,073
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 82%
Carriers: 2

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

Republic on JFK to DCA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 2,073 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Republic on JFK to DCA runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 82 extra late arrivals.

On time

69.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,937 completed flights

Avg delay

69 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

6.22%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

66.2%

Every carrier on JFK to DCA, 2,518 flights

These figures cover 2,073 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

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Carrier by carrier

Republic against every carrier on JFK to DCA

Republic flew 2,073 of the 2,518 flights on JFK to DCA, most of the route. Its 69.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 66.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 69.1% to JetBlue at 52.7%.

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 JFK to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways (this page)	2,073	69.1%	69 min	6.22%	C−
JetBlue Airways	445	52.7%	83 min	7.19%	F−

Flight by flight

Republic flight numbers on JFK to DCA

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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 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am162 flights83.2%
8am–11am535 flights80.2%
11am–2pm34 flights82.4%
2pm–5pm558 flights56.2%
5pm–8pm216 flights65.3%
8pm–5am568 flights67.2%

Scale runs 50% to 90%.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.2% of the time, against 56.2% for the afternoon window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 568 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on JFK to DCA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, March worst

September is the best month on the calendar at 86.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. September was the busiest month here, with 208 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 60.2%, a spread of 21 points.

Arrival by arrival

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

Republic on JFK to DCA often beats the schedule: 541 of 1,937 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 599 late arrivals split 184 under half an hour, 200 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 215 an hour or more.

15+ min early541 flights27.9%
Within 15 min797 flights41.1%
15–29 min late184 flights9.5%
30–59 min late200 flights10.3%
1–2 hours late136 flights7.0%
2+ hours late79 flights4.1%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 1,937 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

51 of 394 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. In the other direction, 256 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 JFK to DCA

The latest arrival of the period was on 13 March 2026, 19 hours 25 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.

The latest arrivals of Republic on JFK to DCA in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
13 March 2026	19 hours 25 minutes	Extreme weather
13 March 2026	16 hours 40 minutes	National Airspace System
13 June 2026	9 hours 11 minutes	National Airspace System
8 August 2026	9 hours 3 minutes	National Airspace System
28 August 2026	8 hours 53 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why Republic runs late on this route

National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 41,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

National Airspace System
47%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
Carrier
18%
Extreme weather
3%

47% 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 19,000 minutes out of 41,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 41,229 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 83.2% on time here.

Cancellations run at 6.22%, against 1.89% 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

11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

At 213 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 76.0% on time across 2,041 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,073 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 JFK to DCA

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.22% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 1,937 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