Route reliability record
BDL→IAD
Hartford to Washington
- Flights
- 1,082
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 325 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 1,082 BDL to IAD flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly BDL to IAD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.3%, against 84.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 71 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,061 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.94%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
85.3% on time across 941 flights
These figures cover 1,082 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BDL to IAD
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 941 | 85.3% | 82 min | 1.49% | A |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 141 | 78.4% | 75 min | 4.96% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on BDL to IAD
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Hartford to Washington
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BDL → IADHartford to Washington | United Airlines | 84.0% | 85.3% | 1.49% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 635 06:00 |
| 2. BDL → BWIHartford to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 81.1% | 82.6% | 1.80% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. BDL → DCAHartford to Washington | Republic Airways | 72.0% | 73.6% | 2.23% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. BDL → DCAHartford to Washington | PSA Airlines | 62.1% | 67.5% | 8.01% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am362 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am265 flights90.4%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm266 flights65.4%
- 5pm–8pm90 flights84.9%
- 8pm–5am99 flights84.8%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.8% of the time, against 65.4% for the afternoon window. That is 28 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 362 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BDL to IAD by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On BDL to IAD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 65.4%, a wide gap of 28.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.8%
- 8–11am90.4%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm65.4%
- 5–8pm84.9%
- 8pm–5am84.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
August is the worst month at 74.7% on time, 16 points below October, the best at 90.5%. 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 111 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.2%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 13,369 reported delay minutes.
40% 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 5,334 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.94% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 325 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 85.9% on time across 1,082 flights, within 2 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. 1,082 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in IAD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,082 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 84.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,061 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BDL to IAD questions
How often is BDL to IAD delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.6% of the 1,082 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is BDL to IAD compared with the rest of the country?
84.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BDL to IAD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 65.4%, 28 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are August delays on BDL to IAD?
August is the weakest month at 74.7% on time, compared with 90.5% in October. Across the year that is 16 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- IAD to BDL — the return legseparate record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on BDL to IAD85.3%
- Republic Airways on BDL to IAD78.4%
- BDL to ORD, a related route75.9%
- ATL to IAD, a related route76.4%
- BDL to ATL, a related route84.2%
- United Airlines on-time record85.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. BDL to IAD and IAD to BDL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.