Route reliability record
EWR→PBI
Newark to West Palm Beach
- Flights
- 3,611
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,024 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,611 flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,770 at 79.1% on time.
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
77.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,507 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.52%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
79.1% on time across 2,770 flights
These figures cover 3,611 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 PBI
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,770 | 79.1% | 69 min | 1.95% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 721 | 73.3% | 69 min | 2.77% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 120 | 51.5% | 72 min | 14.17% | F− |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 79.1%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 20 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am581 flights88.4%
- 8am–11am841 flights79.7%
- 11am–2pm661 flights74.5%
- 2pm–5pm716 flights74.5%
- 5pm–8pm531 flights72.0%
- 8pm–5am281 flights68.9%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.4% of the time, against 68.9% for the overnight window. That is 20 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 841 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
December is the weak month at 67.9% on time, against 87.7% in May. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 409 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.2%. 14 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 55,000 reported delay minutes.
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
33% 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 18,000 minutes out of 55,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 55,198 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 88.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.52%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
8.2% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,024 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 74.5% on time across 3,612 flights, within 3 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 3,611 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 87.7% on time and December 67.9%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 3,507 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to PBI questions
How often is EWR to PBI delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.9% of the 3,611 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 PBI?
United Airlines leads at 79.1% on time across 2,770 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 73.3%, a gap of 6 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 PBI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.9%, 20 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 December delays on EWR to PBI?
December is the weakest month at 67.9% on time, compared with 87.7% in May. Across the year that is 20 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
- PBI to EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record79.1%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record73.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record51.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. EWR to PBI and PBI 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.