Route reliability record
BTV→DCA
Burlington to Washington
- Flights
- 1,118
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 437 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,118 BTV to DCA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
Best time to fly BTV to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 81.5% of the time and Saturday flights 73.4%, against 64.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 129 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
64.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,057 completed flights
Avg delay
112 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
62.7% on time across 831 flights
These figures cover 1,118 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BTV to DCA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 174 | 69.8% | 79 min | 1.72% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 109 | 69.0% | 91 min | 7.34% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 66.7% | 60 min | 25.00% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 831 | 62.7% | 121 min | 5.42% | D− |
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
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 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am347 flights81.5%
- 8am–11am11 flights—
- 11am–2pm351 flights56.9%
- 2pm–5pm59 flights61.4%
- 5pm–8pm350 flights54.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.9% on time, against 81.5% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 351 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BTV to DCA 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 BTV to DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 81.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 54.9%, a wide gap of 26.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am81.5%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm56.9%
- 2–5pm61.4%
- 5–8pm54.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
December is the weak month at 46.5% on time, against 73.9% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. September was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 73.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 59.4%, a spread of 14 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 42,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 12%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 42,268 reported delay minutes.
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 5.10%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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 actually costs
16.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 437 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 66.8% on time across 1,119 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,118 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.10% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two 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. 1,057 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BTV to DCA questions
How often is BTV to DCA delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 35.6% of the 1,118 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is BTV to DCA compared with the rest of the country?
64.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 13 points against it. That is worth a D− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BTV to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 81.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 54.9%, 27 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 December delays on BTV to DCA?
December is the weakest month at 46.5% on time, compared with 73.9% in October. Across the year that is 27 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
- DCA to BTV — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on BTV to DCA69.8%
- Republic Airways on BTV to DCA69.0%
- PSA Airlines on BTV to DCA62.7%
- BTV to ORD, a related route68.3%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- BTV to PHL, a related route76.7%
- American Airlines on-time record69.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record69.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record66.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BTV to DCA and DCA to BTV 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.