Route reliability record
BOS→CLE
Boston to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,620
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 563 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,620 BOS to CLE flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 671 at 77.4% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to CLE: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.1%, against 76.8% 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
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,570 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.90%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
77.4% on time across 671 flights
These figures cover 1,620 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 BOS to CLE
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 68 | 79.1% | 66 min | 1.47% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 671 | 77.4% | 76 min | 3.43% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 881 | 76.1% | 62 min | 2.61% | B |
JetBlue 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on BOS to CLE
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 Boston to Cleveland
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. BOS → CLEBoston to Cleveland | JetBlue Airways | 74.7% | 77.4% | 3.43% | 8am–11am, Wed | B6 641 13:46 |
| 2. BOS → CLEBoston to Cleveland | Republic Airways | 74.1% | 76.1% | 2.61% | 8am–11am, Sat | YX 5641 14:54 |
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 34 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am138 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am451 flights87.9%
- 11am–2pm177 flights79.2%
- 2pm–5pm289 flights82.1%
- 5pm–8pm263 flights63.6%
- 8pm–5am302 flights58.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.0% on time, against 91.6% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 451 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS to CLE 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 BOS to CLE, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 58.0%, a wide gap of 33.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.6%
- 8–11am87.9%
- 11am–2pm79.2%
- 2–5pm82.1%
- 5–8pm63.6%
- 8pm–5am58.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 63.1%. June is the strongest month at 84.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 21 points. October was the busiest month here, with 178 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.4%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 24,835 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,742 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.90%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
9.2% 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 563 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 77.7% on time across 1,620 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 1,620 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 CLE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.90% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,570 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to CLE questions
How often is BOS to CLE 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 23.2% of the 1,620 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 BOS to CLE?
JetBlue Airways leads at 77.4% on time across 671 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 76.1%, a gap of about a point. 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 BOS to CLE?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.0%, 34 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 March delays on BOS to CLE?
March is the weakest month at 63.1% on time, compared with 84.5% in June. Across the year that is 21 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
- CLE to BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to CLE77.4%
- Republic Airways on BOS to CLE76.1%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.8%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record79.1%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record77.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BOS to CLE and CLE to BOS 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.