Route reliability record
ORD→BDL
Chicago to Hartford
- Flights
- 2,376
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 783 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,376 ORD to BDL flights, of which Republic Airways flew 669 at 79.7% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to BDL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.4% of the time and Saturday flights 79.0%, against 74.5% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 79.7% on time across 669 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,318 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.36%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
79.7% on time across 669 flights
These figures cover 2,376 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 ORD to BDL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 79.7% of the time; American Airlines manages 65.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 404 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 140 | 85.2% | 46 min | 3.57% | A− |
| Republic Airways | 669 | 79.7% | 78 min | 3.29% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 240 | 78.1% | 64 min | 2.92% | B |
| United Airlines | 923 | 72.1% | 65 min | 1.19% | C |
| American Airlines | 404 | 65.9% | 102 min | 2.72% | C |
Republic Airways cancels 3.3% 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 ORD 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 Chicago 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. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → BDLChicago to Hartford | Republic Airways | 77.1% | 79.7% | 3.29% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. MDW → BDLChicago to Hartford | Southwest Airlines | 75.0% | 76.1% | 1.44% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ORD → BDLChicago to Hartford | United Airlines | 71.2% | 72.1% | 1.19% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2195 11:03 |
| 4. ORD → BDLChicago to Hartford | American Airlines | 64.1% | 65.9% | 2.72% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 28 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am269 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am369 flights83.7%
- 11am–2pm599 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm424 flights76.2%
- 5pm–8pm630 flights58.5%
- 8pm–5am85 flights63.8%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.5% on time, against 86.4% for the 5am–8am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 630 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to BDL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.5%, a wide gap of 27.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.4%
- 8–11am83.7%
- 11am–2pm80.5%
- 2–5pm76.2%
- 5–8pm58.5%
- 8pm–5am63.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
December is the weak month at 61.3% on time, against 84.0% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 230 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.8%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 45,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 45,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 44,576 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.36% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.0% 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 783 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 75.9% on time across 2,375 flights, within about 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 2,376 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 BDL 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. September runs 84.0% on time and December 61.3%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,318 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to BDL questions
How often is ORD to BDL delayed?
About 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 25.5% of the 2,376 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to BDL?
Republic Airways leads at 79.7% on time across 669 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 65.9%, a gap of 14 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 ORD to BDL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.5%, 28 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 December delays on ORD to BDL?
December is the weakest month at 61.3% on time, compared with 84.0% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to BDL85.2%
- Republic Airways on ORD to BDL79.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to BDL78.1%
- United Airlines on ORD to BDL72.1%
- American Airlines on ORD to BDL65.9%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to BDL, a related route79.6%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record85.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record79.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record78.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ORD to BDL and BDL to ORD 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.