Route reliability record

BOS→LGA

Boston to New York

Flights: 7,147
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Distance: 184 mi
Carriers: 2

This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 7,147 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 562 at 89.0% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.4%, 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.

On time

77.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,731 completed flights

Avg delay

77 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

5.78%

National rate is 1.80%

Best carrier

Delta

89.0% on time across 562 flights

These figures cover 7,147 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 BOS to LGA

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 89.0% of the time; Republic Airways manages 76.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 6,585 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on BOS to LGA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	562	89.0%	123 min	4.27%	A−
Republic Airways	6,585	76.1%	75 min	5.91%	B−

Republic Airways cancels 5.9% 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.

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 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am926 flights92.9%
8am–11am1,549 flights86.6%
11am–2pm1,382 flights80.9%
2pm–5pm1,384 flights69.8%
5pm–8pm1,388 flights64.4%
8pm–5am518 flights60.6%

Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.6% on time, against 92.9% 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.

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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.August best, March worst

Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 66.0%. August is the strongest month at 86.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 21 points.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.1%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 119,000 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
39%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
Carrier
21%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

36% 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 119,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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.

39% 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 46,000 minutes out of 119,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 5.78%, against 1.80% nationally. That is roughly one flight in fifteen 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. 10.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 184 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 73.3% on time across 7,148 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 7,147 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.

What to do with this

Booking this route

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.78% 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.

Common questions

BOS to LGA questions

How often is BOS to LGA delayed?

Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.9% of the 7,147 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on BOS to LGA?

Delta Air Lines leads at 89.0% on time across 562 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 76.1%, a gap of 13 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 LGA?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.6%, 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 March delays on BOS to LGA?

March is the weakest month at 66.0% on time, compared with 86.5% in August. 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.

Where to go next

Direction matters. BOS to LGA and LGA to BOS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures