Carrier route record

YXSTL→DCA

Republic Airways · St. Louis to Washington

Flights: 199
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 STL to DCA lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 199 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, PSA Airlines, flew 615 at 74.1% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on STL to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 192 completed flights

Avg delay

62 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.52%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

72.9%

Every carrier on STL to DCA, 2,414 flights

These figures cover 199 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 STL to DCA

Republic flew 199 of the 2,414 flights on STL to DCA, about 8% of it. Its 77.1% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 77.1% to American at 67.5%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on STL to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways (this page)thin sample	199	77.1%	62 min	3.52%	B−
PSA Airlines	615	74.1%	128 min	5.20%	C−
Envoy Airthin sample	22	72.7%	32 min	0.00%	C+
Southwest Airlines	1,403	72.5%	57 min	1.43%	C
American Airlinesthin sample	175	67.5%	83 min	2.86%	C

PSA Airlines cancels 5.2% 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 22 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am46 flights86.4%
8am–11am72 flights79.7%
11am–2pm49 flights72.9%
2pm–5pm32 flights64.5%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.4% of the time, against 64.5% for the afternoon window. That is 22 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 72 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Republic on STL to DCA through the year

Jul–Sep 202520 flights—
Oct–Dec 2025118 flights78.4%
Jan–Mar 202661 flights80.4%

Scale runs 70% 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 77.1% on time across 199 flights.

Split by quarter, Republic on STL to DCA logged 20 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 118 flights in Oct–Dec 2025 and 61 flights in Jan–Mar 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 77.1% annual figure is the one to use.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 62.5%. 25 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 47% of the 2,721 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
47%
Carrier
28%
National Airspace System
25%
Extreme weather
0%

47% 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 2,721 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 47 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 2,721 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 86.4% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.52%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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

7.8% 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.

The 719 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 79.8% on time across 200 flights, within 3 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. 199 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 STL to DCA

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.52% 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. 192 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures