Carrier route record
YXPHL→DCA
Republic Airways · Philadelphia to Washington
- Flights
- 217
- 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 PHL to DCA draws a C−. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 217 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Republic on PHL to DCA runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 116 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 206 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.61%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
60.3%
Every carrier on PHL to DCA, 817 flights
These figures cover 217 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 PHL to DCA
Republic flew 217 of the 817 flights on PHL to DCA, about 27% of it. Its 66.0% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 60.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 66.0% to PSA at 58.3%.
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page)thin sample | 217 | 66.0% | 69 min | 4.61% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 600 | 58.3% | 86 min | 4.00% | 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 12 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–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm49 flights57.1%
- 5pm–8pm159 flights69.6%
- 8pm–5am9 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 69.6% on time. The full set of windows spans 12 points.
Across the year
Republic on PHL to DCA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202592 flights63.5%
- Oct–Dec 202568 flights75.0%
- Apr–Jun 202657 flights58.5%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. 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 66.0% on time across 217 flights.
Republic on PHL to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 75.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 58.5%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 72 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, Monday is the strongest day at 74.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 56.7%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 4,835 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,738 of the 4,835 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,835 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.61%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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. 9.2% 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 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 5pm–8pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.7% on time across 218 flights, 17 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 17 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 217 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 PHL to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.61% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5pm–8pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 206 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to DCA, every carrier
- Republic on DCA to PHL, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on PHL to DCA58.3%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.