Carrier route record

AABTV→DCA

American Airlines · Burlington to Washington

Flights: 174
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 16%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on BTV 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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 174 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on BTV to DCA runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 75 extra late arrivals.

On time

69.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 169 completed flights

Avg delay

79 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.72%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

64.4%

Every carrier on BTV to DCA, 1,118 flights

These figures cover 174 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

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Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on BTV to DCA

American flew 174 of the 1,118 flights on BTV to DCA, about 16% of it. Its 69.8% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 64.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 69.8% to PSA at 62.7%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on BTV to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)thin 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

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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am70 flights87.0%
8am–11am—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm33 flights61.3%
5pm–8pm71 flights56.5%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.5% on time, against 87.0% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 71 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on BTV to DCA through the year

Jul–Sep 202554 flights55.8%
Oct–Dec 20259 flights—
Jan–Mar 202670 flights71.6%
Apr–Jun 202637 flights86.5%
Jul–Sep 20264 flights—

Scale runs 45% to 90%. 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 69.8% on time across 174 flights.

American on BTV to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 86.5% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 55.8%, a swing of 31 points on roughly 58 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Arrival by arrival

How late American on BTV to DCA runs when it is late

The 51 late arrivals split 21 under half an hour, 10 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 20 an hour or more.

15+ min early35 flights20.7%
Within 15 min83 flights49.1%
15–29 min late21 flights12.4%
30–59 min late10 flights5.9%
1–2 hours late10 flights5.9%
2+ hours late10 flights5.9%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 169 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 39 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 4 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 16 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.

The worst days

Worst days for American on BTV to DCA

The latest arrival of the period was on 15 September 2025, 16 hours 32 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in September 2025.

The latest arrivals of American on BTV to DCA in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
15 September 2025	16 hours 32 minutes	Carrier
25 September 2025	3 hours	Carrier
5 February 2026	2 hours 45 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
30 September 2025	2 hours 35 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
27 January 2026	2 hours 33 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why American 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 4,036 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
40%
Late-arriving aircraft
38%
National Airspace System
22%
Extreme weather
0%
Security
0%

38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,036 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 to one. The split is drawn from 4,036 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,603 of the 4,036 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.72% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.15%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

11.8% 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 69.2% on time across 174 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. 174 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 BTV to DCA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 174 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 69.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 169 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures