Carrier route record
YXSYR→DCA
Republic Airways · Syracuse to Washington
- Flights
- 178
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on SYR to DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 178 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Republic on SYR to DCA runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 88 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 170 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
67.7%
Every carrier on SYR to DCA, 1,029 flights
These figures cover 178 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 SYR to DCA
Republic flew 178 of the 1,029 flights on SYR to DCA, about 17% of it. Its 68.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 67.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 82.8% to American at 64.8%. 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 | 89 | 82.8% | 45 min | 2.25% | B |
| Republic Airways (this page)thin sample | 178 | 68.8% | 73 min | 3.93% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 541 | 66.0% | 100 min | 7.21% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 221 | 64.8% | 83 min | 2.26% | D |
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 44 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–8am125 flights83.9%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm35 flights40.0%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm17 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 30% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 40.0% on time against 83.9% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 125 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on SYR to DCA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202528 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202570 flights63.8%
- Jan–Mar 202662 flights58.9%
- Apr–Jun 202618 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 70%. 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 68.8% on time across 178 flights.
Split by quarter, Republic on SYR to DCA logged 28 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 70 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 62 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 18 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 68.8% annual figure is the one to use.
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 3,842 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
42% 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 3,842 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 3,842 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 1,266 minutes out of 3,842, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.93%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
8.2% 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 298 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 69.5% on time across 178 flights, within half a point 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. 178 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 SYR to DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.93% 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. 170 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SYR to DCA, every carrier
- Republic on DCA to SYR, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on SYR to DCA66.0%
- American Airlines on SYR to DCA64.8%
- 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.