Route reliability record
BOS→PBI
Boston to West Palm Beach
- Flights
- 2,039
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,197 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 2,039 BOS to PBI flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 527 at 69.0% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to PBI: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 78.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 73.5%, against 65.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 117 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,960 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
69.0% on time across 527 flights
These figures cover 2,039 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.1% 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 PBI
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 527 | 69.0% | 78 min | 2.85% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,503 | 64.5% | 69 min | 3.73% | D− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 9 | 55.6% | 162 min | 0.00% | D+ |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.7% 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 PBI
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 West Palm Beach
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 → FLLBoston to Fort Lauderdale | Delta Air Lines | 67.7% | 69.8% | 3.04% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 1401 07:10 |
| 2. BOS → PBIBoston to West Palm Beach | Delta Air Lines | 67.0% | 69.0% | 2.85% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 2160 15:35 |
| 3. BOS → FLLBoston to Fort Lauderdale | JetBlue Airways | 64.1% | 66.4% | 3.50% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 569 06:00 |
| 4. BOS → PBIBoston to West Palm Beach | JetBlue Airways | 62.1% | 64.5% | 3.73% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 2321 15:39 |
| 5. BOS → FLLBoston to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 58.1% | 62.1% | 6.47% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 23 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am367 flights77.9%
- 8am–11am359 flights78.8%
- 11am–2pm257 flights67.2%
- 2pm–5pm627 flights55.9%
- 5pm–8pm253 flights56.8%
- 8pm–5am176 flights58.1%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 78.8% of the time, against 55.9% for the afternoon window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 627 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS to PBI 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 PBI, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 78.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 55.9%, a wide gap of 22.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am77.9%
- 8–11am78.8%
- 11am–2pm67.2%
- 2–5pm55.9%
- 5–8pm56.8%
- 8pm–5am58.1%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
December is the weak month at 53.6% on time, against 78.5% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 248 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 73.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 54.3%, a spread of 19 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 48,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 48,470 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 78.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.48%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
14.1% 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 1,197 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 65.6% on time across 2,038 flights, within half 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 2,039 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 PBI after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.48% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,960 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to PBI questions
How often is BOS to PBI delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 34.4% of the 2,039 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 PBI?
Delta Air Lines leads at 69.0% on time across 527 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 64.5%, a gap of 5 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 PBI?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 78.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 55.9%, 23 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 December delays on BOS to PBI?
December is the weakest month at 53.6% on time, compared with 78.5% in May. Across the year that is 25 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
- PBI to BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Palm Beach International (PBI) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on BOS to PBI69.0%
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to PBI64.5%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ATL to PBI, a related route75.8%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record69.0%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record64.5%
- American Airlines on-time record55.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BOS to PBI and PBI 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.