Route reliability record
PBI→EWR
West Palm Beach to Newark
- Flights
- 3,394
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,024 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 3,394 PBI to EWR flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,619 at 77.9% on time.
Best time to fly PBI to EWR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.6% of the time and Friday flights 80.7%, against 75.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,280 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.09%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
77.9% on time across 2,619 flights
These figures cover 3,394 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% 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 PBI to EWR
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 77.9% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 71.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 655 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,619 | 77.9% | 92 min | 2.33% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 655 | 71.5% | 76 min | 4.43% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 120 | 51.4% | 68 min | 12.50% | F− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.4% 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 EWR
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 West Palm Beach to Newark
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. FLL → EWRFort Lauderdale to Newark | United Airlines | 76.1% | 78.1% | 2.57% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. PBI → EWRWest Palm Beach to Newark | United Airlines | 76.1% | 77.9% | 2.33% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2158 06:00 |
| 3. PBI → ISPWest Palm Beach to Islip | JetBlue Airways | 75.4% | 76.8% | 1.85% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 544 10:09 |
| 4. PBI → JFKWest Palm Beach to New York | JetBlue Airways | 74.3% | 77.5% | 4.12% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. PBI → ISPWest Palm Beach to Islip | Southwest Airlines | 73.1% | 73.9% | 1.15% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 35 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am581 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am620 flights88.4%
- 11am–2pm704 flights79.3%
- 2pm–5pm539 flights61.8%
- 5pm–8pm775 flights58.9%
- 8pm–5am175 flights74.0%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.9% on time, against 93.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 775 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PBI to EWR 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 EWR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.9%, a wide gap of 34.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.6%
- 8–11am88.4%
- 11am–2pm79.3%
- 2–5pm61.8%
- 5–8pm58.9%
- 8pm–5am74.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 89.9% 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 408 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.4%, a spread of 12 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 69,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% 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 28,000 minutes out of 69,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 68,728 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 93.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.09%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
11.6% 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 1,024 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.
The return leg runs 77.5% on time across 3,395 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 3,394 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 EWR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.09% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 3,280 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PBI to EWR questions
How often is PBI to EWR 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 24.2% of the 3,394 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PBI to EWR?
United Airlines leads at 77.9% on time across 2,619 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 71.5%, 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 PBI to EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.9%, 35 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 October delays on PBI to EWR?
October is the weakest month at 69.0% on time, compared with 89.9% in May. Across the year that is 21 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
- EWR to PBI — the return legseparate record
- Palm Beach International (PBI) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- United Airlines on PBI to EWR77.9%
- JetBlue Airways on PBI to EWR71.5%
- Spirit Airlines on PBI to EWR51.4%
- PBI to ATL, a related route82.7%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- PBI to LGA, a related route68.1%
- United Airlines on-time record77.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record71.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record51.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PBI to EWR and EWR to PBI 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.