Carrier route record
B6DTW→BOS
JetBlue Airways · Detroit to Boston
- Flights
- 723
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with JetBlue Airways.
JetBlue on DTW to BOS sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 723 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate JetBlue on DTW to BOS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 700 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.18%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.8%
Every carrier on DTW to BOS, 2,588 flights
These figures cover 723 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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
JetBlue against every carrier on DTW to BOS
JetBlue flew 723 of the 2,588 flights on DTW to BOS, about 28% of it. Its 74.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 77.9% to Republic at 0.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 154 | 77.9% | 60 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,710 | 74.9% | 67 min | 1.81% | C |
| JetBlue Airways (this page) | 723 | 74.0% | 87 min | 3.18% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 20 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
JetBlue flight numbers on DTW to BOS
Departure window
When JetBlue runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 47 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–8am135 flights90.2%
- 8am–11am203 flights80.5%
- 11am–2pm143 flights80.9%
- 2pm–5pm41 flights43.6%
- 5pm–8pm174 flights56.0%
- 8pm–5am27 flights—
Scale runs 35% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.2% of the time, against 43.6% for the afternoon window. That is 47 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 203 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
JetBlue on DTW to BOS through the year
December is the weak month at 67.4% on time, against 82.3% in August. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 101 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.1%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why JetBlue runs late on this route
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 16,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 28%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
41% 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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 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 15,865 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 90.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.18%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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.
The 632 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 71.7% on time across 723 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 723 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking JetBlue on DTW to BOS
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.18% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 700 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to BOS, every carrier
- JetBlue on BOS to DTW, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to BOS77.9%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to BOS74.9%
- JetBlue Airways network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) 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.