Route reliability record
EWR→BOS
Newark to Boston
- Flights
- 3,906
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 200 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 3,906 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,187 at 73.3% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 62 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,750 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.97%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
73.3% on time across 1,187 flights
These figures cover 3,906 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% 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
Which airline is most reliable on EWR to BOS
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 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 | 1,187 | 73.3% | 70 min | 5.98% | C− |
| United Airlines | 2,719 | 70.6% | 78 min | 3.09% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 6.0% 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.
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 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am268 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am936 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm436 flights82.2%
- 2pm–5pm1,116 flights60.1%
- 5pm–8pm602 flights58.8%
- 8pm–5am548 flights62.8%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.8% on time, against 89.6% 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 1,116 flights scheduled in it.
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 76.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.1%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 81,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
38% 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 81,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 81,041 reported delay minutes.
38% 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 30,000 minutes out of 81,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.97%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.1% 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.
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 74.9% on time across 3,906 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 3,906 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 this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.97% 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. 3,750 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 three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.6% of the 3,906 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 73.3% on time across 1,187 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 70.6%, a gap of 3 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 89.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.8%, 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-time record73.3%
- United Airlines on-time record70.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.