Carrier route record
YXJFK→BOS
Republic Airways · New York to Boston
- Flights
- 2,916
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 51%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on JFK to BOS carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,916 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, JetBlue Airways, flew 2,460 at 69.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on JFK to BOS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,787 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.7%
Every carrier on JFK to BOS, 5,744 flights
These figures cover 2,916 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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
Republic against every carrier on JFK to BOS
Republic flew 2,916 of the 5,744 flights on JFK to BOS, most of the route. Its 77.8% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 77.8% to Delta at 68.8%.
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point 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 (this page) | 2,916 | 77.8% | 74 min | 4.39% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,460 | 69.7% | 79 min | 4.07% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 368 | 68.8% | 93 min | 3.26% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.1% 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
Republic flight numbers on JFK to BOS
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am461 flights91.8%
- 8am–11am693 flights88.1%
- 11am–2pm171 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm581 flights71.5%
- 5pm–8pm617 flights62.9%
- 8pm–5am393 flights73.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.9% on time, against 91.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 693 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on JFK to BOS through the year
Delays peak in September, when the on-time rate falls to 64.7%. August is the strongest month at 88.6%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 24 points. March was the busiest month here, with 286 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.8%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% 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 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 26 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 45,533 reported delay minutes.
43% 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 19,000 minutes out of 46,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.39%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% 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 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 75.1% on time across 2,915 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 2,916 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 Republic on JFK to BOS
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.39% 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. 2,787 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to BOS, every carrier
- Republic on BOS to JFK, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to BOS69.7%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to BOS68.8%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.