Carrier route record
AABDL→ORD
American Airlines · Hartford to Chicago
- Flights
- 461
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 20%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on BDL to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 2.6 hours behind schedule. That rests on 461 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 644 at 78.2% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on BDL to ORD runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 444 completed flights
Avg delay
154 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.25%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.0%
Every carrier on BDL to ORD, 2,349 flights
These figures cover 461 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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
American against every carrier on BDL to ORD
American flew 461 of the 2,349 flights on BDL to ORD, about 20% of it. Its 73.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 78.3% to SkyWest at 70.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 78.2% of the time; United Airlines manages 71.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 841 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 141 | 78.3% | 60 min | 2.13% | B |
| Republic Airways | 644 | 78.2% | 69 min | 3.88% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 461 | 73.2% | 154 min | 3.25% | C− |
| United Airlines | 841 | 71.5% | 78 min | 1.55% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 262 | 70.6% | 71 min | 2.29% | C |
Republic Airways cancels 3.9% 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 American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 40 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am269 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm59 flights69.6%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm133 flights46.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 46.8% on time, against 86.6% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 269 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on BDL to ORD through the year
July is the worst month at 55.2% on time, 25 points below March, the best at 79.7%. 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.2%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 18,000 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.
- 56%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 10,000 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 18,299 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.25%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.5% 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.
The 783 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.6% on time across 461 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 461 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 American on BDL to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.25% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.6 hours; 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. 444 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BDL to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to BDL, the return leg
- Envoy Air on BDL to ORD78.3%
- Republic Airways on BDL to ORD78.2%
- United Airlines on BDL to ORD71.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on BDL to ORD70.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.