Carrier route record
YXSDF→DCA
Republic Airways · Louisville to Washington
- Flights
- 463
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 45%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on SDF to DCA lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 463 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Republic's SDF to DCA record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 61 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 452 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.16%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.2%
Every carrier on SDF to DCA, 1,025 flights
These figures cover 463 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on SDF to DCA
Republic flew 463 of the 1,025 flights on SDF to DCA, about 45% of it. Its 83.4% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 91.7% to American at 60.0%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 13 | 91.7% | 38 min | 7.69% | A− |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 463 | 83.4% | 53 min | 2.16% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 544 | 73.4% | 107 min | 6.62% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 60.0% | 69 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on SDF to DCA
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am356 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm53 flights64.0%
- 2pm–5pm47 flights55.6%
- 5pm–8pm6 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.0% of the time, against 55.6% for the afternoon window. That is 34 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 356 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on SDF to DCA through the year
June is the worst month at 70.8% on time, 21 points below April, the best at 91.4%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 56 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 80.9%, a spread of 7 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Republic on SDF to DCA runs when it is late
Republic on SDF to DCA often beats the schedule: 150 of 452 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 75 late arrivals split 32 under half an hour, 21 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 22 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early150 flights33.2%
- Within 15 min227 flights50.2%
- 15–29 min late32 flights7.1%
- 30–59 min late21 flights4.6%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights3.1%
- 2+ hours late8 flights1.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 452 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
7 of 47 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. In the other direction, 35 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for Republic on SDF to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 June 2026, 3 hours 49 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across June, August, December and January, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 June 2026 | 3 hours 49 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 August 2026 | 3 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 December 2025 | 2 hours 52 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 3 January 2026 | 2 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 June 2026 | 2 hours 21 minutes | National Airspace System |
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 3,947 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,575 of the 3,947 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,947 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 1,303 minutes out of 3,947, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.16% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 474 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 72.5% on time across 465 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 463 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 SDF to DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 463 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 83.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 452 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SDF to DCA, every carrier
- Republic on DCA to SDF, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on SDF to DCA73.4%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.