Route reliability record
BOS→EWR
Boston to Newark
- Flights
- 3,860
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 200 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.5% 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 3,860 BOS to EWR flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,695 at 75.8% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to EWR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.2% of the time and Saturday flights 81.5%, against 75.7% 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
75.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,683 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.51%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
75.8% on time across 2,695 flights
These figures cover 3,860 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 EWR
The two carriers here are closely matched: half 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,695 | 75.8% | 88 min | 3.53% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 1,165 | 75.3% | 66 min | 6.78% | B− |
Republic Airways cancels 6.8% 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 EWR
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 Newark
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BOS → JFKBoston to New York | Delta Air Lines | 88.6% | 91.6% | 3.26% | 5am–8am, Sun | DL 2611 06:00 |
| 2. BOS → LGABoston to New York | Delta Air Lines | 86.4% | 90.8% | 4.88% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. BOS → EWRBoston to Newark | United Airlines | 73.1% | 75.8% | 3.53% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 1833 06:00 |
| 4. BOS → LGABoston to New York | Republic Airways | 70.3% | 75.2% | 6.50% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 5732 09:00 |
| 5. BOS → EWRBoston to Newark | Republic Airways | 70.2% | 75.3% | 6.78% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 5718 18:15 |
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am894 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am660 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm790 flights72.1%
- 2pm–5pm420 flights68.9%
- 5pm–8pm825 flights59.9%
- 8pm–5am271 flights57.9%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.9% on time, against 92.2% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 894 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS to EWR 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 EWR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 57.9%, a wide gap of 34.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.2%
- 8–11am87.4%
- 11am–2pm72.1%
- 2–5pm68.9%
- 5–8pm59.9%
- 8pm–5am57.9%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 October, when the on-time rate falls to 62.7%. February is the strongest month at 86.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 24 points. March was the busiest month here, with 352 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.9%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 73,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 73,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 29 to one. The split is drawn from 73,095 reported delay minutes.
43% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 31,000 minutes out of 73,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.51%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
10.2% 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.
At 200 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.2% on time across 3,860 flights, 4 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,860 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 EWR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.51% 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. 3,683 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to EWR questions
How often is BOS to EWR 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 24.3% of the 3,860 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 EWR?
United Airlines leads at 75.8% on time across 2,695 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 75.3%, a gap of half 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 EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 57.9%, 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 October delays on BOS to EWR?
October is the weakest month at 62.7% on time, compared with 86.2% in February. Across the year that is 24 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
- EWR to BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- United Airlines on BOS to EWR75.8%
- Republic Airways on BOS to EWR75.3%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- United Airlines on-time record75.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BOS to EWR and EWR 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.