Route reliability record
CVG→BOS
Cincinnati to Boston
- Flights
- 1,942
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 752 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,942 CVG to BOS flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly CVG to BOS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.8% of the time and Saturday flights 88.5%, against 80.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
80.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,884 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.94%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
77.4% on time across 1,557 flights
These figures cover 1,942 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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 CVG to BOS
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 364 | 92.5% | 83 min | 0.82% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 1,557 | 77.4% | 63 min | 3.47% | B− |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 21 | 61.9% | 55 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on CVG to BOS
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.
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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am692 flights91.8%
- 8am–11am33 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm348 flights82.2%
- 2pm–5pm372 flights67.8%
- 5pm–8pm303 flights63.6%
- 8pm–5am194 flights81.1%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.6% 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 692 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 October, when the on-time rate falls to 62.0%. August is the strongest month at 89.1%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 27 points. October was the busiest month here, with 191 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.5%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 57% of the 24,000 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.
- 57%National Airspace System
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
57% 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 14,000 minutes out of 24,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 24,160 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.94%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
8.8% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 752 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 80.5% on time across 1,943 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 1,942 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 BOS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.94% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 1,884 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CVG to BOS questions
How often is CVG to BOS delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.9% of the 1,942 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CVG to BOS compared with the rest of the country?
80.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CVG to BOS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.6%, 28 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 October delays on CVG to BOS?
October is the weakest month at 62.0% on time, compared with 89.1% in August. Across the year that is 27 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
- BOS to CVG — the return legseparate record
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on CVG to BOS92.5%
- Republic Airways on CVG to BOS77.4%
- CVG to ORD, a related route70.2%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- CVG to ATL, a related route86.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record92.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record61.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. CVG to BOS and BOS to CVG 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.