Carrier route record
YXPIT→DCA
Republic Airways · Pittsburgh to Washington
- Flights
- 773
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on PIT to DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 773 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on PIT to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 756 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.07%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
69.0%
Every carrier on PIT to DCA, 1,431 flights
These figures cover 773 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 PIT to DCA
Republic flew 773 of the 1,431 flights on PIT to DCA, most of the route. Its 75.8% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 75.8% to Envoy at 56.2%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page) | 773 | 75.8% | 56 min | 2.07% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 362 | 62.8% | 84 min | 6.91% | D− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 100 | 62.5% | 85 min | 4.00% | D− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 196 | 56.2% | 51 min | 2.04% | 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 29 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–8am185 flights87.8%
- 8am–11am296 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm195 flights73.8%
- 2pm–5pm9 flights—
- 5pm–8pm88 flights59.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.0% on time, against 87.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 296 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on PIT to DCA through the year
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 58.2%. July is the strongest month at 89.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 31 points. January was the busiest month here, with 85 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.0%. 17 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. National Airspace System accounts for 54% of the 10,000 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.
- 54%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
34% 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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 26 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 10,244 reported delay minutes.
54% 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 5,537 minutes out of 10,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.07% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.
At 204 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 runs 74.1% on time across 773 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 773 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 PIT to DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 773 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 75.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 756 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PIT to DCA, every carrier
- Republic on DCA to PIT, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on PIT to DCA62.8%
- American Airlines on PIT to DCA62.5%
- Envoy Air on PIT to DCA56.2%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- 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.