Carrier route record
UABTV→ORD
United Airlines · Burlington to Chicago
- Flights
- 683
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 55%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on BTV to ORD 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 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 683 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so United on BTV to ORD runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 86 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 678 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.73%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
66.2%
Every carrier on BTV to ORD, 1,245 flights
These figures cover 683 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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
United against every carrier on BTV to ORD
United flew 683 of the 1,245 flights on BTV to ORD, most of the route. Its 69.0% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 66.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 75.0% to SkyWest at 61.9%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 18 | 75.0% | 52 min | 11.11% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 683 | 69.0% | 87 min | 0.73% | C+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 63 | 65.1% | 64 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 481 | 61.9% | 113 min | 3.53% | D− |
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 36 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am318 flights81.3%
- 8am–11am37 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm19 flights—
- 2pm–5pm197 flights56.3%
- 5pm–8pm112 flights50.9%
- 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: 50.9% 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 318 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on BTV to ORD through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 83.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 71.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%. 5 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 48% 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.
- 48%National Airspace System
- 32%Carrier
- 13%Extreme weather
- 6%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 18,333 reported delay minutes.
48% 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 8,866 minutes out of 18,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.73%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
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. 9.3% 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 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. 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 72.6% on time across 683 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 683 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 United on BTV to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 683 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 69.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 678 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BTV to ORD, every carrier
- United on ORD to BTV, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on BTV to ORD61.9%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.