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DelayAtlas

Route reliability record

JAXBOS

Jacksonville to Boston

Flights
1,609
Period
July 2025 to June 2026
Distance
1,011 mi
Carriers
3
CGRADE

This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,609 JAX to BOS flights, of which Republic Airways flew 895 at 77.9% on time.

Best time to fly JAX to BOS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.8% of the time and Saturday flights 85.1%, against 74.4% 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

74.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,571 completed flights

Avg delay

79 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.30%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Republic

77.9% on time across 895 flights

These figures cover 1,609 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 JAX to BOS

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 77.9% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 68.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 658 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on JAX to BOS
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
Delta Air Linesthin sample5685.2%71 min3.57%A−
Republic Airways89577.9%88 min1.68%B
JetBlue Airways65868.7%71 min3.04%C−

JetBlue Airways cancels 3.0% 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.

Flight by flight

Flights on JAX 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.

Best ways to make this trip

The most reliable ways to fly Jacksonville to Boston

Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.

Most reliable ways to fly from JAX to BOS
OptionAirlineSuccessOn timeCancelledBest departureMost punctual flight
1. JAXBOSJacksonville to BostonRepublic Airways76.6%77.9%1.68%5am–8am, Sat
2. JAXBOSJacksonville to BostonJetBlue Airways66.6%68.7%3.04%5am–8am, SatB6 1310 09:55

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.

Plan this trip by month, day and time

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 32 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

  • 5am–8am382 flights89.8%
  • 8am–11am167 flights88.5%
  • 11am–2pm565 flights68.8%
  • 2pm–5pm12 flights
  • 5pm–8pm308 flights67.7%
  • 8pm–5am175 flights58.2%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.2% on time, against 89.8% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 565 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 35 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.

On-time rate by calendar month75J73F75M83A88M83J66J83A54S58O74N76D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.May best, September worst

May is the best month on the calendar at 88.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 161 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.4%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

On-time rate by day of the week69.7Mon78.8Tue77.3Wed71.0Thu71.8Fri85.1Sat69.4Sun
Monday: 69.7 percent on time. Tuesday: 78.8 percent on time. Wednesday: 77.3 percent on time. Thursday: 71.0 percent on time. Friday: 71.8 percent on time. Saturday: 85.1 percent on time. Sunday: 69.4 percent on time

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 32,000 reported delay minutes.

  • Late-arriving aircraft
    36%
  • National Airspace System
    32%
  • Carrier
    31%
  • Extreme weather
    1%

36% 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 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 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 31,878 reported delay minutes.

32% 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 10,000 minutes out of 32,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 2.30% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.06%.

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. 10.6% 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 1,011 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 75.4% on time across 1,606 flights, within about 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 1,609 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 88.2% on time and September 53.7%, a swing of 35 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of September before you think about anything else. 1,571 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

JAX to BOS questions

How often is JAX to BOS delayed?

About 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 25.6% of the 1,609 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 JAX to BOS?

Republic Airways leads at 77.9% on time across 895 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 68.7%, a gap of 9 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 JAX to BOS?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.2%, 32 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 September delays on JAX to BOS?

September is the weakest month at 53.7% on time, compared with 88.2% in May. Across the year that is 35 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

Direction matters. JAX to BOS and BOS to JAX 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.