Carrier route record
YXPVD→DCA
Republic Airways · Providence to Washington
- Flights
- 196
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 8%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on PVD 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 196 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 672 at 78.9% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.9% on time across 672 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 185 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.1%
Every carrier on PVD to DCA, 2,453 flights
These figures cover 196 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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 PVD to DCA
Republic flew 196 of the 2,453 flights on PVD to DCA, about 8% of it. Its 75.1% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 84.1% to PSA at 68.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 78.9% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 68.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,063 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 70 | 84.1% | 36 min | 10.00% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 672 | 78.9% | 65 min | 2.68% | B |
| Republic Airways (this page)thin sample | 196 | 75.1% | 63 min | 5.10% | B− |
| American Airlines | 452 | 73.6% | 56 min | 1.99% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 1,063 | 68.0% | 91 min | 7.24% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.2% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am54 flights87.8%
- 8am–11am24 flights—
- 11am–2pm60 flights78.3%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm2 flights—
- 8pm–5am55 flights61.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.2% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 60 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on PVD to DCA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights80.0%
- Oct–Dec 20253 flights—
- Jan–Mar 202640 flights51.5%
- Apr–Jun 2026123 flights79.8%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. 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 75.1% on time across 196 flights.
Republic on PVD to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 80.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 51.5%, a swing of 29 points on roughly 65 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 74.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 62.5%. 12 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 50% of the 2,890 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
50% 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 2,890 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 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 2,890 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 87.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.10%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
8.6% 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 356 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 73.4% on time across 196 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. 196 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 PVD to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.10% 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. 185 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PVD to DCA, every carrier
- Republic on DCA to PVD, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on PVD to DCA78.9%
- American Airlines on PVD to DCA73.6%
- PSA Airlines on PVD to DCA68.0%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.