Route reliability record
BTV→ORD
Burlington to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,282
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 763 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,282 BTV to ORD flights, of which United Airlines flew 684 at 70.5% on time.
Best time to fly BTV to ORD: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 71.6%, against 68.3% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 90 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,254 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.03%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
70.5% on time across 684 flights
These figures cover 1,282 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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 ORD
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 20 | 72.2% | 67 min | 10.00% | C− |
| United Airlines | 684 | 70.5% | 82 min | 0.73% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 511 | 65.5% | 111 min | 3.72% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 67 | 64.2% | 69 min | 0.00% | D+ |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 3.7% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on BTV to ORD
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 Burlington to Chicago
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BTV → ORDBurlington to Chicago | United Airlines | 70.0% | 70.5% | 0.73% | 8am–11am, Fri | UA 215 06:00 |
| 2. BTV → ORDBurlington to Chicago | SkyWest Airlines | 63.1% | 65.5% | 3.72% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 33 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am524 flights80.3%
- 8am–11am37 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm118 flights69.2%
- 2pm–5pm216 flights62.4%
- 5pm–8pm356 flights53.4%
- 8pm–5am31 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.4% on time, against 86.5% for the 8am–11am 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 524 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BTV to ORD 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 ORD, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 53.4%, a wide gap of 33.1 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am80.3%
- 8–11am86.5%
- 11am–2pm69.2%
- 2–5pm62.4%
- 5–8pm53.4%
- 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 24 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 76.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 163 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 71.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.7%, 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 37,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 34%National Airspace System
- 18%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 37,232 reported delay minutes.
34% 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 13,000 minutes out of 37,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.03% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
12.2% 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.
The 763 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.
The return leg runs 68.5% on time across 1,282 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,282 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 ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 76.1% on time and March 52.5%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,254 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BTV to ORD questions
How often is BTV to ORD 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 31.7% of the 1,282 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BTV to ORD?
United Airlines leads at 70.5% on time across 684 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 65.5%, a gap of 5 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BTV to ORD?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.4%, 33 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 March delays on BTV to ORD?
March is the weakest month at 52.5% on time, compared with 76.1% in May. Across the year that is 24 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
- ORD to BTV — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on BTV to ORD70.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on BTV to ORD65.5%
- BTV to PHL, a related route76.7%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- BTV to DCA, a related route64.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record72.2%
- United Airlines on-time record70.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record65.5%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. BTV to ORD and ORD 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.