Route reliability record
DCA→BTV
Washington to Burlington
- Flights
- 1,119
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 437 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.5% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,119 DCA to BTV flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DCA to BTV: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 79.4% of the time and Saturday flights 77.8%, against 66.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 105 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,055 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
65.5% on time across 832 flights
These figures cover 1,119 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to BTV
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 | 109 | 73.3% | 73 min | 6.42% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 174 | 69.2% | 57 min | 1.15% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 4 | 66.7% | 76 min | 25.00% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 832 | 65.5% | 86 min | 6.13% | C− |
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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am353 flights71.6%
- 11am–2pm63 flights79.4%
- 2pm–5pm354 flights62.4%
- 5pm–8pm5 flights—
- 8pm–5am344 flights63.2%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 79.4% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 62.4%. 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 354 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to BTV 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 DCA to BTV, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 79.4% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 62.4%, a wide gap of 17.0 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am71.6%
- 11am–2pm79.4%
- 2–5pm62.4%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am63.2%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 37 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 43.6% on time, 37 points below January, the best at 80.2%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 57.8%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 28,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 28,186 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.45%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
13.9% 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 64.4% on time across 1,118 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 1,119 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 BTV after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.45% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 1,055 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to BTV questions
How often is DCA to BTV 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 33.2% of the 1,119 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is DCA to BTV compared with the rest of the country?
66.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 11 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to BTV?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 79.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 62.4%, 17 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 DCA to BTV?
July is the weakest month at 43.6% on time, compared with 80.2% in January. Across the year that is 37 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
- BTV to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DCA to BTV73.3%
- American Airlines on DCA to BTV69.2%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to BTV65.5%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ORD to BTV, a related route68.5%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record73.3%
- American Airlines on-time record69.2%
- 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. DCA to BTV and BTV to DCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DCA to BTV’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.