Route reliability record
JFK→BOS
New York to Boston
- Flights
- 5,615
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 187 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.0% 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 5,615 JFK to BOS flights, of which Republic Airways flew 2,858 at 75.8% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to BOS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Saturday flights 78.9%, against 72.1% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 75.8% on time across 2,858 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,332 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
75.8% on time across 2,858 flights
These figures cover 5,615 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% 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 JFK to BOS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 75.8% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 68.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,389 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 2,858 | 75.8% | 77 min | 5.14% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 368 | 68.7% | 87 min | 3.53% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,389 | 68.3% | 80 min | 5.11% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 5.1% 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 JFK 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 New York 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. 4 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 29 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am830 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am1,085 flights84.2%
- 11am–2pm479 flights71.1%
- 2pm–5pm985 flights63.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,023 flights59.9%
- 8pm–5am1,213 flights66.2%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.9% on time, against 89.3% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 1,213 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK 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 JFK to BOS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.9%, a wide gap of 29.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.3%
- 8–11am84.2%
- 11am–2pm71.1%
- 2–5pm63.9%
- 5–8pm59.9%
- 8pm–5am66.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
July is the worst month at 61.1% on time, 22 points below May, the best at 83.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 556 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.6%, a spread of 14 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 118,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 118,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 to one. The split is drawn from 117,619 reported delay minutes.
37% 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 44,000 minutes out of 118,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 5.02%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
13.1% 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 187 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 runs 74.2% on time across 5,614 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.
The sample behind these figures is 5,615 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 5.02% 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. 5,332 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to BOS questions
How often is JFK 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 27.9% of the 5,615 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 JFK to BOS?
Republic Airways leads at 75.8% on time across 2,858 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 68.3%, a gap of 8 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 JFK to BOS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.9%, 29 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 July delays on JFK to BOS?
July is the weakest month at 61.1% on time, compared with 83.0% in May. Across the year that is 22 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on JFK to BOS75.8%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to BOS68.7%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to BOS68.3%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record68.7%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record68.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to BOS and BOS to JFK 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.