Route reliability record
BOS→JFK
Boston to New York
- Flights
- 5,614
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 187 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.6% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 5,614 BOS to JFK flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 368 at 91.6% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.7%, against 74.2% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 91.6% on time across 368 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,301 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
91.6% on time across 368 flights
These figures cover 5,614 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 JFK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 91.6% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 70.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,389 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 368 | 91.6% | 75 min | 3.26% | A− |
| Republic Airways | 2,857 | 74.6% | 64 min | 5.99% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,389 | 70.8% | 79 min | 5.44% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 6.0% 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 JFK
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 New York
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. 4 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 32 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,277 flights91.8%
- 8am–11am756 flights84.4%
- 11am–2pm1,117 flights72.7%
- 2pm–5pm648 flights65.5%
- 5pm–8pm1,100 flights60.1%
- 8pm–5am716 flights61.2%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.1% on time, against 91.8% 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 1,277 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS to JFK 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 JFK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.1%, a wide gap of 31.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.8%
- 8–11am84.4%
- 11am–2pm72.7%
- 2–5pm65.5%
- 5–8pm60.1%
- 8pm–5am61.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 63.6% on time, 17 points below May, the best at 80.5%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 552 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 98,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 98,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 25 to one. The split is drawn from 97,786 reported delay minutes.
35% 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 35,000 minutes out of 98,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 5.58%, 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
10.4% 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 187 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 runs 72.1% on time across 5,615 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 5,614 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 JFK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.58% 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. 5,301 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to JFK questions
How often is BOS to JFK 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 25.8% of the 5,614 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 JFK?
Delta Air Lines leads at 91.6% on time across 368 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 70.8%, a gap of 21 points. 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 JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.1%, 32 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 BOS to JFK?
July is the weakest month at 63.6% on time, compared with 80.5% in May. Across the year that is 17 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
- JFK to BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on BOS to JFK91.6%
- Republic Airways on BOS to JFK74.6%
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to JFK70.8%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record91.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.6%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record70.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BOS to JFK and JFK 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.