Carrier route record
YXBOS→PHL
Republic Airways · Boston to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,763
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 36%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on BOS to PHL carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five 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 1,763 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,249 at 75.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on BOS to PHL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,702 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.5%
Every carrier on BOS to PHL, 4,961 flights
These figures cover 1,763 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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
Republic against every carrier on BOS to PHL
Republic flew 1,763 of the 4,961 flights on BOS to PHL, about 36% of it. Its 79.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 82.1% to JetBlue at 72.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 57 | 82.1% | 55 min | 1.75% | B |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,763 | 79.1% | 69 min | 3.29% | B− |
| American Airlines | 2,249 | 75.9% | 109 min | 2.85% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 892 | 72.3% | 68 min | 2.47% | C |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 75.9%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on BOS to PHL
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 31 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am136 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am419 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm332 flights83.8%
- 2pm–5pm389 flights76.3%
- 5pm–8pm281 flights72.2%
- 8pm–5am206 flights61.2%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.2% on time, against 92.5% 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 419 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on BOS to PHL through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 87.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 212 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.9%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
50% 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 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 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. The split is drawn from 24,579 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.29%, against 1.81% 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 costs
8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 280 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 80.9% on time across 1,761 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 1,763 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 Republic on BOS to PHL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.29% 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. 1,702 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BOS to PHL, every carrier
- Republic on PHL to BOS, the return leg
- American Airlines on BOS to PHL75.9%
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to PHL72.3%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.