Route reliability record
ORD→BDL
Chicago to Hartford
- Flights
- 2,350
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 783 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,350 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 644 at 80.5% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 80.5% on time across 644 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,293 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.38%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
80.5% on time across 644 flights
These figures cover 2,350 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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 ORD to BDL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 80.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 67.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 461 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 141 | 84.9% | 45 min | 1.42% | B |
| Republic Airways | 644 | 80.5% | 79 min | 3.42% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 263 | 77.4% | 73 min | 2.28% | B |
| United Airlines | 841 | 73.6% | 65 min | 1.31% | C |
| American Airlines | 461 | 67.6% | 90 min | 3.25% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 3.4% 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.
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 24 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am213 flights85.6%
- 8am–11am426 flights85.2%
- 11am–2pm563 flights81.4%
- 2pm–5pm438 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm572 flights62.0%
- 8pm–5am138 flights64.1%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.0% on time, against 85.6% 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 572 flights scheduled in it.
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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.7%. 11 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 48% of the 42,000 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%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 42,000 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 42,039 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 85.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.38% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.04%.
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. 9.7% 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 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. 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 runs 74.0% on time across 2,349 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 2,350 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.
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. 2,293 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.6% of the 2,350 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 80.5% on time across 644 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 67.6%, a gap of 13 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 85.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.0%, 24 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-time record84.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.5%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.