Route reliability record
EWR→BOS
Newark to Boston
- Flights
- 3,860
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 200 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 3,860 EWR to BOS flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,165 at 75.1% on time.
Best time to fly EWR to BOS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.4% of the time and Saturday flights 78.7%, against 72.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 51 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,695 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.25%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
75.1% on time across 1,165 flights
These figures cover 3,860 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% 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 EWR to BOS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,165 | 75.1% | 74 min | 6.70% | B− |
| United Airlines | 2,695 | 70.9% | 77 min | 3.19% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 6.7% 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 EWR 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Newark to Boston
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. JFK → BOSNew York to Boston | Republic Airways | 71.9% | 75.8% | 5.14% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 5765 06:00 |
| 2. EWR → BOSNewark to Boston | Republic Airways | 70.1% | 75.1% | 6.70% | 8am–11am, Sat | YX 5718 20:40 |
| 3. LGA → BOSNew York to Boston | Delta Air Lines | 69.9% | 73.2% | 4.48% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. EWR → BOSNewark to Boston | United Airlines | 68.6% | 70.9% | 3.19% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 5. LGA → BOSNew York to Boston | Republic Airways | 68.5% | 73.1% | 6.28% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 5745 11:00 |
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 31 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am256 flights90.4%
- 8am–11am987 flights87.0%
- 11am–2pm456 flights81.8%
- 2pm–5pm1,025 flights60.3%
- 5pm–8pm588 flights59.5%
- 8pm–5am548 flights63.7%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.5% on time, against 90.4% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,025 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter EWR to BOS 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 EWR to BOS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.5%, a wide gap of 30.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.4%
- 8–11am87.0%
- 11am–2pm81.8%
- 2–5pm60.3%
- 5–8pm59.5%
- 8pm–5am63.7%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 82.9% 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 353 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.3%, a spread of 12 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 78,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 78,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 77,827 reported delay minutes.
41% 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 32,000 minutes out of 78,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.25%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
12.3% 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 200 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 75.7% on time across 3,860 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,860 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 4.25% 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. 3,695 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to BOS questions
How often is EWR to BOS delayed?
Roughly 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 27.8% of the 3,860 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 EWR to BOS?
Republic Airways leads at 75.1% on time across 1,165 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 70.9%, a gap of 4 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 EWR to BOS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.5%, 31 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 EWR to BOS?
October is the weakest month at 50.3% on time, compared with 82.9% in May. Across the year that is 33 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 EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on EWR to BOS75.1%
- United Airlines on EWR to BOS70.9%
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.9%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- EWR to ATL, a related route76.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.1%
- United Airlines on-time record70.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. EWR to BOS and BOS to EWR 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.