Route reliability record
PIT→BOS
Pittsburgh to Boston
- Flights
- 2,162
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 496 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five 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 2,162 PIT to BOS flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,158 at 81.0% on time.
Best time to fly PIT to BOS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.8% of the time and Saturday flights 87.0%, against 78.3% 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
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,078 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.79%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
81.0% on time across 1,158 flights
These figures cover 2,162 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 PIT to BOS
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,158 | 81.0% | 63 min | 3.11% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,004 | 75.2% | 82 min | 4.58% | B− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.6% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on PIT 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 Pittsburgh to Boston
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PIT → BOSPittsburgh to Boston | Republic Airways | 78.5% | 81.0% | 3.11% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 5690 06:09 |
| 2. PIT → BOSPittsburgh to Boston | JetBlue Airways | 71.8% | 75.2% | 4.58% | 5am–8am, Sat | B6 1286 17:00 |
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 35 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am585 flights90.8%
- 8am–11am399 flights84.3%
- 11am–2pm352 flights77.2%
- 2pm–5pm314 flights65.0%
- 5pm–8pm397 flights71.4%
- 8pm–5am115 flights55.9%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.9% on time, against 90.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 585 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PIT 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 PIT to BOS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 55.9%, a wide gap of 34.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.8%
- 8–11am84.3%
- 11am–2pm77.2%
- 2–5pm65.0%
- 5–8pm71.4%
- 8pm–5am55.9%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 90.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 224 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.6%, 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 33,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
36% 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 12,000 minutes out of 33,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 33,004 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 90.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.79%, 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
8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 496 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 75.6% on time across 2,163 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 2,162 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 3.79% 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. 2,078 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PIT to BOS questions
How often is PIT to BOS delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.7% of the 2,162 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 PIT to BOS?
Republic Airways leads at 81.0% on time across 1,158 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 75.2%, 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 PIT to BOS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.9%, 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 PIT to BOS?
October is the weakest month at 66.8% on time, compared with 90.2% in May. Across the year that is 23 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 PIT — the return legseparate record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PIT to BOS81.0%
- JetBlue Airways on PIT to BOS75.2%
- PIT to ORD, a related route77.1%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- PIT to LGA, a related route79.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record81.0%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record75.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PIT to BOS and BOS to PIT 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.