Route reliability record
PBI→BOS
West Palm Beach to Boston
- Flights
- 2,038
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,197 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 2,038 PBI to BOS flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 527 at 66.2% on time.
Best time to fly PBI to BOS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.0% of the time and Saturday flights 72.8%, against 65.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 117 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,961 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
66.2% on time across 527 flights
These figures cover 2,038 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PBI to BOS
The two carriers here are closely matched: half 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 527 | 66.2% | 88 min | 3.42% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,502 | 65.6% | 76 min | 3.86% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 9 | 44.4% | 142 min | 0.00% | F+ |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.9% 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 PBI 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly West Palm Beach 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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → BOSFort Lauderdale to Boston | Delta Air Lines | 69.8% | 72.1% | 3.16% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. PBI → BOSWest Palm Beach to Boston | Delta Air Lines | 63.9% | 66.2% | 3.42% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 3. FLL → BOSFort Lauderdale to Boston | JetBlue Airways | 63.7% | 65.9% | 3.37% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 470 20:00 |
| 4. PBI → BOSWest Palm Beach to Boston | JetBlue Airways | 63.1% | 65.6% | 3.86% | 5am–8am, Sat | B6 322 10:15 |
| 5. FLL → BOSFort Lauderdale to Boston | Spirit Airlines | 56.4% | 60.0% | 6.04% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 45 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am295 flights93.0%
- 8am–11am210 flights82.1%
- 11am–2pm557 flights69.1%
- 2pm–5pm309 flights48.5%
- 5pm–8pm267 flights51.6%
- 8pm–5am400 flights54.3%
Scale runs 40% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.0% of the time, against 48.5% for the afternoon window. That is 45 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 557 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PBI 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 PBI to BOS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 48.5%, a wide gap of 44.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.0%
- 8–11am82.1%
- 11am–2pm69.1%
- 2–5pm48.5%
- 5–8pm51.6%
- 8pm–5am54.3%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
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 77.3% 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 249 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 72.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.7%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 54,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 54,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 49 to one. The split is drawn from 53,743 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 93.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.73%, against 1.89% 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
14.8% 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.
The 1,197 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.
The return leg runs 65.6% on time across 2,039 flights, within half 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 2,038 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 3.73% 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. 1,961 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PBI to BOS questions
How often is PBI to BOS delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 34.4% of the 2,038 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 PBI to BOS?
Delta Air Lines leads at 66.2% on time across 527 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 65.6%, a gap of half a point. 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 PBI to BOS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 48.5%, 45 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 PBI to BOS?
September is the weakest month at 44.6% on time, compared with 77.3% 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 PBI — the return legseparate record
- Palm Beach International (PBI) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on PBI to BOS66.2%
- JetBlue Airways on PBI to BOS65.6%
- PBI to ATL, a related route82.7%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- PBI to EWR, a related route75.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record66.2%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record65.6%
- American Airlines on-time record44.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PBI to BOS and BOS to PBI are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed PBI to BOS’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.