Route reliability record
PHL→BTV
Philadelphia to Burlington
- Flights
- 1,098
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 335 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five 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 1,098 PHL to BTV flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHL to BTV: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.9% of the time and Friday flights 84.7%, against 78.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,045 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
77.9% on time across 716 flights
These figures cover 1,098 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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 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 | 162 | 83.4% | 80 min | 1.23% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 716 | 77.9% | 95 min | 5.73% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 220 | 76.5% | 82 min | 0.91% | B+ |
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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am354 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm36 flights88.9%
- 2pm–5pm353 flights70.6%
- 5pm–8pm18 flights—
- 8pm–5am337 flights76.9%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 88.9% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 70.6%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 354 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 64.8% on time, against 90.0% in April. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 112 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.9%. 15 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 62% of the 20,000 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.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
62% 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 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 20,285 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.10%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.0% 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.
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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 77.0% on time across 1,099 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 1,098 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 4.10% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,045 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 five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.5% of the 1,098 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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?
78.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHL to BTV?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 88.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 70.6%, 18 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 PHL to BTV?
December is the weakest month at 64.8% on time, compared with 90.0% in April. Across the year that is 25 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 BTV83.4%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to BTV77.9%
- American Airlines on PHL to BTV76.5%
- PHL to ATL, a related route79.2%
- ORD to BTV, a related route69.0%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record83.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record77.9%
- American Airlines on-time record76.5%
- 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.
Embed PHL to BTV’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.