Route reliability record
PBI→EWR
West Palm Beach to Newark
- Flights
- 3,612
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,024 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 3,612 flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,773 at 76.3% on time.
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
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,500 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
76.3% on time across 2,773 flights
These figures cover 3,612 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.7% 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 PBI to EWR
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,773 | 76.3% | 97 min | 2.24% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 719 | 70.9% | 77 min | 3.62% | C− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 120 | 51.4% | 68 min | 12.50% | F− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.6% 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.
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 36 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am638 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am674 flights88.2%
- 11am–2pm653 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm608 flights60.6%
- 5pm–8pm802 flights56.8%
- 8pm–5am237 flights67.3%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.8% on time, against 92.9% 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 802 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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 58.2% on time, 32 points below May, the best at 89.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 408 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.5%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 81,000 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.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 37,000 minutes out of 81,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 80,993 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 92.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.85%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.7% 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 1,024 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. 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 77.1% on time across 3,611 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 3,612 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 this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.85% 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. 3,500 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.5% of the 3,612 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 76.3% on time across 2,773 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 70.9%, a gap of 5 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 92.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.8%, 36 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 PBI to EWR?
July is the weakest month at 58.2% on time, compared with 89.9% in May. Across the year that is 32 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
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record76.3%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record70.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record51.4%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.