Route reliability record
BTV→PHL
Burlington to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,099
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 335 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,099 BTV to PHL flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly BTV to PHL: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.1% of the time and Friday flights 81.7%, against 77.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,046 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.73%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
78.6% on time across 716 flights
These figures cover 1,099 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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
Which airline is most reliable on BTV to PHL
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 | 162 | 80.5% | 95 min | 4.94% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 716 | 78.6% | 108 min | 5.87% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 221 | 69.4% | 79 min | 0.90% | C+ |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am355 flights82.2%
- 8am–11am28 flights—
- 11am–2pm325 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm188 flights55.9%
- 5pm–8pm203 flights76.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 83.1% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 55.9%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 355 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
July is the worst month at 61.4% on time, 26 points below April, the best at 87.8%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 112 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.4%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 24,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 23,713 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.73%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.3% 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.
At 335 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 78.5% on time across 1,098 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 1,099 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 PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.73% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,046 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BTV to PHL questions
How often is BTV to PHL delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.0% of the 1,099 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is BTV to PHL compared with the rest of the country?
77.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BTV to PHL?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 83.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 55.9%, 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 July delays on BTV to PHL?
July is the weakest month at 61.4% on time, compared with 87.8% in April. Across the year that is 26 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
- PHL to BTV — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on BTV to PHL80.5%
- PSA Airlines on BTV to PHL78.6%
- American Airlines on BTV to PHL69.4%
- BTV to ORD, a related route66.2%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.9%
- BTV to DCA, a related route66.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record78.6%
- American Airlines on-time record69.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BTV to PHL and PHL to BTV are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed BTV to PHL’s on-time badge on your site
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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.