Route reliability record
BOS→LGA
Boston to New York
- Flights
- 7,442
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 184 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.4% 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 7,442 BOS to LGA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 471 at 90.8% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.4% of the time and Saturday flights 81.6%, against 76.2% 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
76.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,963 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.40%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
90.8% on time across 471 flights
These figures cover 7,442 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 90.8% of the time; Republic Airways manages 75.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 6,971 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 471 | 90.8% | 123 min | 4.88% | A− |
| Republic Airways | 6,971 | 75.2% | 77 min | 6.50% | B− |
Republic Airways cancels 6.5% 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 LGA
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.
- Republic 572117:0067.1% · 314 flights
- Republic 573615:0073.5% · 308 flights
- Republic 571619:0061.4% · 304 flights
- Republic 574410:0085.8% · 294 flights
- Republic 583118:0062.2% · 290 flights
- Republic 573014:0077.1% · 288 flights
- Republic 573209:0086.1% · 276 flights
- Republic 574813:0079.2% · 271 flights
- Republic 573508:0085.7% · 268 flights
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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. 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 33 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,011 flights92.4%
- 8am–11am1,546 flights86.3%
- 11am–2pm1,411 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm1,349 flights70.0%
- 5pm–8pm1,403 flights63.2%
- 8pm–5am722 flights59.8%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.8% on time, against 92.4% 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 1,546 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS to LGA 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 LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 59.8%, a wide gap of 32.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.4%
- 8–11am86.3%
- 11am–2pm79.5%
- 2–5pm70.0%
- 5–8pm63.2%
- 8pm–5am59.8%
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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 66.0%. February is the strongest month at 82.7%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 17 points. July was the busiest month here, with 683 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.1%, a spread of 13 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 129,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%National Airspace System
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 129,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 129,494 reported delay minutes.
38% 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 49,000 minutes out of 129,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 6.40%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
11.4% 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 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 73.1% on time across 7,443 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 7,442 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.40% 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. 6,963 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to LGA questions
How often is BOS to LGA 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 23.8% of the 7,442 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 LGA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 90.8% on time across 471 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 75.2%, a gap of 16 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 92.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.8%, 33 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 82.7% in February. 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
- LGA to BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on BOS to LGA90.8%
- Republic Airways on BOS to LGA75.2%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record90.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.
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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.