Carrier route record
DLRSW→BOS
Delta Air Lines · Fort Myers to Boston
- Flights
- 582
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 26%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on RSW to BOS 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 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 582 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on RSW 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
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 574 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.4%
Every carrier on RSW to BOS, 2,254 flights
These figures cover 582 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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
Delta against every carrier on RSW to BOS
Delta flew 582 of the 2,254 flights on RSW to BOS, about 26% of it. Its 75.8% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 75.8% to Spirit at 34.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 582 | 75.8% | 78 min | 1.37% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,596 | 69.9% | 86 min | 2.88% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 76 | 34.3% | 72 min | 11.84% | F− |
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am81 flights90.1%
- 11am–2pm276 flights78.0%
- 2pm–5pm9 flights—
- 5pm–8pm50 flights70.0%
- 8pm–5am166 flights66.5%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.1% of the time, against 66.5% for the overnight window. That is 24 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 276 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on RSW to BOS through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 63.3%. June is the strongest month at 94.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 31 points. April was the busiest month here, with 67 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.3%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 11,000 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.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
42% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 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 10,844 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.
The 1,249 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 77.5% on time across 582 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 582 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on RSW to BOS
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 582 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 75.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 574 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RSW to BOS, every carrier
- Delta on BOS to RSW, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on RSW to BOS69.9%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.