Carrier route record
YXRDU→BNA
Republic Airways · Raleigh to Nashville
- Flights
- 954
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on RDU to BNA lands a B, about a point 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 954 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on RDU to BNA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 930 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.20%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.3%
Every carrier on RDU to BNA, 2,213 flights
These figures cover 954 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 RDU to BNA
Republic flew 954 of the 2,213 flights on RDU to BNA, about 43% of it. Its 78.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 81.3% to Republic at 78.9%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,259 | 81.3% | 49 min | 1.03% | B |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 954 | 78.9% | 73 min | 2.20% | B |
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on RDU to BNA
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 21 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–8am4 flights—
- 8am–11am351 flights89.6%
- 11am–2pm62 flights85.0%
- 2pm–5pm295 flights68.6%
- 5pm–8pm61 flights71.7%
- 8pm–5am181 flights74.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.6% of the time, against 68.6% for the afternoon window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 351 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on RDU to BNA through the year
December is the weak month at 61.2% on time, against 87.9% in August. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. January was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.6%. 16 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 72% of the 14,000 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.
- 72%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
72% 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 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 61 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 14,312 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.20% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.
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. 9.4% 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 442 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.5% on time across 952 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 954 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 RDU to BNA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 954 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 78.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 930 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to BNA, every carrier
- Republic on BNA to RDU, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on RDU to BNA81.3%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) 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.