Route reliability record
IAD→BDL
Washington to Hartford
- Flights
- 1,082
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 325 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 1,082 IAD to BDL flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAD to BDL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 89.0%, against 85.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 86 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,062 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.66%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
85.8% on time across 941 flights
These figures cover 1,082 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on IAD to BDL
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 | 141 | 86.6% | 75 min | 4.96% | A− |
| United Airlines | 941 | 85.8% | 63 min | 1.17% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on IAD to BDL
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 Washington to Hartford
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → BDLWashington to Hartford | United Airlines | 84.8% | 85.8% | 1.17% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 444 22:25 |
| 2. BWI → BDLBaltimore to Hartford | Southwest Airlines | 79.4% | 81.2% | 2.21% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. DCA → BDLWashington to Hartford | Republic Airways | 72.3% | 74.0% | 2.24% | 8am–11am, Sun | — |
| 4. DCA → BDLWashington to Hartford | PSA Airlines | 62.3% | 67.8% | 8.13% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am232 flights91.2%
- 11am–2pm266 flights89.6%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm235 flights83.5%
- 8pm–5am349 flights81.2%
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.2% of the time, against 81.2% for the overnight window. That is 10 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 349 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAD to BDL 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 IAD to BDL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 81.2%, a wide gap of 10.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am91.2%
- 11am–2pm89.6%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm83.5%
- 8pm–5am81.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 73.7% on time, 20 points below January, the best at 93.8%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 111 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 80.7%, a spread of 8 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 9,587 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 14%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 9,587 reported delay minutes.
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,587 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations sit at 1.66% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 325 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 84.4% on time across 1,082 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,082 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in BDL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,082 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 85.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,062 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAD to BDL questions
How often is IAD to BDL delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.1% of the 1,082 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is IAD to BDL compared with the rest of the country?
85.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IAD to BDL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 81.2%, 10 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 IAD to BDL?
July is the weakest month at 73.7% on time, compared with 93.8% in January. Across the year that is 20 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
- BDL to IAD — the return legseparate record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on IAD to BDL86.6%
- United Airlines on IAD to BDL85.8%
- IAD to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ORD to BDL, a related route74.5%
- IAD to DEN, a related route83.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record86.6%
- United Airlines on-time record85.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. IAD to BDL and BDL to IAD 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.