Route reliability record
ORD→BTV
Chicago to Burlington
- Flights
- 1,282
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 763 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,282 ORD to BTV flights, of which United Airlines flew 684 at 70.1% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to BTV: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 71.8%, against 68.5% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 88 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,249 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.03%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
70.1% on time across 684 flights
These figures cover 1,282 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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 BTV
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 67 | 82.1% | 34 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 20 | 73.7% | 49 min | 5.00% | C− |
| United Airlines | 684 | 70.1% | 65 min | 0.44% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 511 | 64.3% | 88 min | 4.31% | D− |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.3% 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 BTV
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 Burlington
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → BTVChicago to Burlington | United Airlines | 69.8% | 70.1% | 0.44% | 11am–2pm, Tue | UA 786 11:00 |
| 2. ORD → BTVChicago to Burlington | SkyWest Airlines | 61.5% | 64.3% | 4.31% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
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 32 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am60 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am48 flights77.1%
- 11am–2pm369 flights78.6%
- 2pm–5pm241 flights63.9%
- 5pm–8pm446 flights59.6%
- 8pm–5am118 flights64.5%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.6% on time, against 91.5% 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 446 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to BTV, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.6%, a wide gap of 31.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.5%
- 8–11am77.1%
- 11am–2pm78.6%
- 2–5pm63.9%
- 5–8pm59.6%
- 8pm–5am64.5%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
August is the worst month at 57.7% on time, 22 points below September, the best at 79.5%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 163 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 71.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.6%, a spread of 6 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 29,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 29,051 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 91.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.03% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.55%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
12.1% 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 763 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 68.3% on time across 1,282 flights, within half 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 1,282 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 79.5% on time and August 57.7%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,249 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to BTV questions
How often is ORD 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 31.5% of the 1,282 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 BTV?
United Airlines leads at 70.1% on time across 684 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 64.3%, a gap of 6 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 BTV?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.6%, 32 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 August delays on ORD to BTV?
August is the weakest month at 57.7% on time, compared with 79.5% in September. Across the year that is 22 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on ORD to BTV70.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to BTV64.3%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- PHL to BTV, a related route75.0%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record82.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record73.7%
- United Airlines on-time record70.1%
- 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. ORD to BTV and BTV 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.