Carrier route record
YXPWM→DCA
Republic Airways · Portland to Washington
- Flights
- 100
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on PWM to DCA lands a B−, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 100 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 655 at 76.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on PWM 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
81.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 95 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.5%
Every carrier on PWM to DCA, 1,153 flights
These figures cover 100 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 PWM to DCA
Republic flew 100 of the 1,153 flights on PWM to DCA, about 9% of it. Its 81.1% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 81.1% to Envoy at 50.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 76.1% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 70.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 394 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways (this page)thin sample | 100 | 81.1% | 79 min | 5.00% | B− |
| American Airlines | 655 | 76.1% | 112 min | 2.29% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 394 | 70.1% | 102 min | 5.84% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 50.0% | 22 min | 0.00% | F+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.8% 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 30 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am61 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm5 flights—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm34 flights60.0%
- 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: 60.0% on time, against 90.0% 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 61 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on PWM to DCA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202532 flights83.9%
- Oct–Dec 20254 flights—
- Jan–Mar 202636 flights63.6%
- Apr–Jun 202628 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. 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 81.1% on time across 100 flights.
Split by quarter, Republic on PWM to DCA logged 32 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 4 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 36 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 28 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 81.1% annual figure is the one to use.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 1,422 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
49% 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 1,422 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 49 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 1,422 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 90.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.00%, 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
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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 482 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 68.2% on time across 100 flights, 13 points below 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 100 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 PWM to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.00% 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. 95 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PWM to DCA, every carrier
- Republic on DCA to PWM, the return leg
- American Airlines on PWM to DCA76.1%
- PSA Airlines on PWM to DCA70.1%
- 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.