Flight number record
B6 988
JetBlue Airways · Los Angeles to Boston
- Route
- LAX → BOS
- Departs
- 21:45
- Flights
- 342
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s B6 988, check with JetBlue Airways.
B6 988 lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 342 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 333 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.63%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.2%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 342 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Schedule
When B6 988 flies
B6 988 flies LAX to BOS without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:45, used on 68 of 342 flights, with 10:03 (43 flights) and 20:38 (38 flights) next.
- Departs 21:4568 flights19.9%
- Departs 10:0343 flights12.6%
- Departs 20:3838 flights11.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 21:45 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.1%, and B6 988 runs 8 points better at 78.4%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
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.
Against the route
B6 988 next to LAX to BOS
Every carrier on LAX to BOS combined arrived on time 76.2% of the time across 4,797 flights, so B6 988 is 2 points ahead of it. JetBlue flew 1,642 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 74.0% on time. Across its whole network JetBlue Airways managed 71.3%, which this flight beats by 7 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B6 988thin sample | 342 | 78.4% | 64 min | 2.63% | B |
| All JetBlue Airways on LAX–BOS | 1,642 | 74.0% | 67 min | 2.07% | C |
| All carriers on LAX–BOS | 4,797 | 76.2% | 80 min | 1.81% | B |
| JetBlue Airways, whole network | 240,615 | 71.3% | 77 min | 3.56% | C− |
Across the year
B6 988 quarter by quarter
B6 988 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 96.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 70.0%, a swing of 27 points on roughly 68 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights96.7%
- Oct–Dec 202591 flights79.8%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights79.1%
- Apr–Jun 202669 flights75.0%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights70.0%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
By weekday, B6 988 did best on Wednesday at 87.5% on time and worst on Sunday at 70.2%. Each day rests on about 49 flights, so a gap of 17 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Arrival by arrival
How late B6 988 runs when it is late
B6 988 often beats the schedule: 124 of 333 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 72 late arrivals split 25 under half an hour, 23 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 24 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early124 flights37.2%
- Within 15 min137 flights41.1%
- 15–29 min late25 flights7.5%
- 30–59 min late23 flights6.9%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights4.5%
- 2+ hours late9 flights2.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 333 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
17 of 67 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. In the other direction, 22 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at BOS.
The worst days
Worst days for B6 988
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 November 2025, 6 hours 1 minute behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 November 2025 | 6 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 23 July 2026 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 April 2026 | 3 hours 44 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 December 2025 | 3 hours 34 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 July 2026 | 3 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why B6 988 runs late
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 4,572 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,572 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 to one. The split is drawn from 4,572 delay minutes reported on B6 988.
Cancellations run at 2.63%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 routes
What a delay on this flight costs
7.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,611 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
Every one of the 342 flights under B6 988 in the data flew LAX to BOS. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 342 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking B6 988
For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on B6 988: 2.63% of its 342 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs about an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to BOS, every carrier and departure
- BOS to LAX, the return direction
- Delta Air Lines 639 on the same route81.6%
- United Airlines 1783 on the same route82.0%
- American Airlines 12 on the same route78.8%
- American Airlines 2453 on the same route78.3%
- United Airlines 2210 on the same route90.7%
- Delta Air Lines 437 on the same route67.5%
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on-time record
- Every JetBlue Airways flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
A flight number here means JetBlue Airways’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
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.