Route reliability record
PHL→BTV
Philadelphia to Burlington
- Flights
- 1,144
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 335 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,144 PHL to BTV flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHL to BTV: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.9%, against 75.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,079 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.98%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
73.2% on time across 828 flights
These figures cover 1,144 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 PHL 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 | 126 | 88.5% | 76 min | 0.79% | A+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 190 | 73.7% | 77 min | 1.58% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 828 | 73.2% | 91 min | 6.40% | 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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am316 flights86.3%
- 11am–2pm127 flights73.6%
- 2pm–5pm322 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm40 flights64.9%
- 8pm–5am339 flights72.8%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.9% on time, against 86.3% for the 8am–11am 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 339 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL 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 PHL to BTV, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.9%, a wide gap of 21.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am86.3%
- 11am–2pm73.6%
- 2–5pm67.7%
- 5–8pm64.9%
- 8pm–5am72.8%
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 41 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 48.6% on time, 41 points below April, the best at 90.0%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.3%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 23,720 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.98%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
10.8% 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 335 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 76.7% on time across 1,145 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 1,144 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 4.98% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,079 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to BTV questions
How often is PHL to BTV 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 25.0% of the 1,144 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is PHL to BTV compared with the rest of the country?
75.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHL to BTV?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.9%, 21 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 PHL to BTV?
July is the weakest month at 48.6% on time, compared with 90.0% in April. Across the year that is 41 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 PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PHL to BTV88.5%
- American Airlines on PHL to BTV73.7%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to BTV73.2%
- PHL to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ORD to BTV, a related route68.5%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record88.5%
- American Airlines on-time record73.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record73.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to BTV and BTV to PHL 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.