PHL → BOS Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · PHLNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 07:54 UTC

Philadelphia airport profile →

Destination · BOSNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 07:54 UTC

Boston airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

52/ 100Fair

Better than 18% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 15,492 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

76.1%

11,512 of 15,128

Cancellation rate

2.28%

353 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-8 min

Average 9.7 min

Severe delays

10.6%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

77 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

15,492

4 carriers

PHL → BOS arrives on time 76.1% of the time; the return trip, BOS → PHL, arrives on time 78.2% of the time, a 2.1-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.

PHL → BOS spends 29.7 minutes on the ground on a 280-mile trip: 20.7 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at PHL and 9.0 minutes from touchdown to gate at BOS.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

What stands out

This route's worst arrivals run unusually far past its typical one, a bigger gap than 90% of 4,598 comparable routes.

A typical arrival is 8 min early, but the worst tenth run 71 minutes worse than that.

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 4,598 in the comparison.

Why PHL → BOS flights are cancelled

July 2023 – July 2026

PHL → BOS cancelled 353 of 15,492 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 44. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 57.8% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 76 scheduled flights.

Share of cancellations

Weather57.8%

Air traffic24.4%

Airline17.8%

Security0.0%

Of 353 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.

What each reason means

Extreme weather1 in 76

Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.

204 cancellations, 57.8% of the total.

The air traffic system1 in 180

Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.

86 cancellations, 24.4% of the total.

The airline1 in 246

Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.

63 cancellations, 17.8% of the total.

Security—

A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.

0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.

Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.

353 coded cancellations were recorded on PHL → BOS; the section appears from 50.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

63 min late

against a median of 8 min early

Arrived an hour or more late10.6%

Typical delay when late77 min

Cancelled2.28%

Landed somewhere else0.07%

PHL → BOS has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 8 min early, but the worst tenth are 71 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.

Percentiles over 15,492 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at BOS after arriving from PHL.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, PHL → BOS arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	35%	Likely to miss
45 min	23%	High risk
60 min	17%	High risk
90 min	10%	Some risk
120 min	6.4%	Some risk

This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 2.28% of the time and diverts 0.07% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 15,128 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.

The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 63 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 15,492 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

PHL → BOS flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 87.5% of the time, against 61.7% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 25.8 percentage points.

By day and hour

On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (PHL).

Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 10.6 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 2.9 points.

On-time arrival rate for PHL to BOS by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM
7 AM–8 AM
8 AM–9 AM
9 AM–10 AM
10 AM–11 AM
11 AM–12 PM
12 PM–1 PM
1 PM–2 PM
2 PM–3 PM
3 PM–4 PM
4 PM–5 PM
5 PM–6 PM
6 PM–7 PM
7 PM–8 PM
8 PM–9 PM
9 PM–10 PM

On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time

50–59
60–69
70–79
80–89
90–99

Fewer than 120 flights, not scored

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.

No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 6 AM and after 10 PM (307 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.

View as tableHide table

On-time arrival rate (%) with flights beneath, by scheduled departure hour and weekday for PHL to BOS. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM	86.6% on time300 flights	89.2% on time283 flights	89.1% on time270 flights	93.8% on time294 flights	88.9% on time301 flights	86.8% on time177 flights	83.7% on time240 flights
7 AM–8 AM	101 flights, too few to score	90 flights, too few to score	87 flights, too few to score	112 flights, too few to score	104 flights, too few to score	102 flights, too few to score	86.8% on time122 flights
8 AM–9 AM	81.1% on time164 flights	82.8% on time160 flights	90.8% on time153 flights	86.7% on time165 flights	82.5% on time160 flights	81.6% on time145 flights	87.2% on time177 flights
9 AM–10 AM	87.6% on time133 flights	86.1% on time120 flights	92.4% on time120 flights	84.0% on time122 flights	86.9% on time122 flights	97 flights, too few to score	108 flights, too few to score
10 AM–11 AM	81.3% on time248 flights	86.5% on time232 flights	88.8% on time241 flights	82.9% on time246 flights	80.4% on time255 flights	86.8% on time192 flights	86.1% on time246 flights
11 AM–12 PM	97 flights, too few to score	108 flights, too few to score	100 flights, too few to score	97 flights, too few to score	98 flights, too few to score	65 flights, too few to score	93 flights, too few to score
12 PM–1 PM	111 flights, too few to score	110 flights, too few to score	106 flights, too few to score	109 flights, too few to score	112 flights, too few to score	93 flights, too few to score	111 flights, too few to score
1 PM–2 PM	64.8% on time152 flights	74.0% on time151 flights	76.5% on time151 flights	73.9% on time156 flights	66.0% on time152 flights	80.0% on time140 flights	67.5% on time125 flights
2 PM–3 PM	65 flights, too few to score	68 flights, too few to score	71 flights, too few to score	62 flights, too few to score	68 flights, too few to score	103 flights, too few to score	71 flights, too few to score
3 PM–4 PM	89 flights, too few to score	86 flights, too few to score	89 flights, too few to score	87 flights, too few to score	88 flights, too few to score	109 flights, too few to score	94 flights, too few to score
4 PM–5 PM	116 flights, too few to score	69.0% on time120 flights	115 flights, too few to score	114 flights, too few to score	112 flights, too few to score	85 flights, too few to score	62.9% on time121 flights
5 PM–6 PM	64.6% on time264 flights	72.3% on time243 flights	72.4% on time232 flights	54.7% on time255 flights	66.8% on time257 flights	64 flights, too few to score	57.0% on time230 flights
6 PM–7 PM	56.5% on time182 flights	62.2% on time178 flights	65.3% on time178 flights	56.1% on time176 flights	54.3% on time178 flights	116 flights, too few to score	58.2% on time179 flights
7 PM–8 PM	118 flights, too few to score	110 flights, too few to score	110 flights, too few to score	119 flights, too few to score	63.2% on time120 flights	90 flights, too few to score	116 flights, too few to score
8 PM–9 PM	53 flights, too few to score	53 flights, too few to score	43 flights, too few to score	51 flights, too few to score	48 flights, too few to score	53 flights, too few to score	52 flights, too few to score
9 PM–10 PM	118 flights, too few to score	95 flights, too few to score	96 flights, too few to score	115 flights, too few to score	74.6% on time120 flights	93 flights, too few to score	70.1% on time121 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM87.5%

9 AM–12 PM86.4%

12–3 PM73.5%

3–6 PM64.5%

6–9 PM61.7%

9 PM–5 AM73.8%

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Why PHL → BOS runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

Late-arriving aircraft44.1%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

Air traffic control27.1%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

The airline23.9%

crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control

Weather4.8%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Security0.1%

screening or terminal security incidents

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for PHL → BOS. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on PHL → BOS, at 44.1%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 87.5% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 61.7%.

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of PHL to BOS: 4.3 times the normal rate at PHL and 3.9 times at BOS. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: PHL 6.5% against 1.5%, BOS 5.3% against 1.4%. Flights that did leave BOS in bad weather arrived on time 65.1% of the time, against 79.7% in normal hours.

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026

Departures from PHL and BOS in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	PHL	BOS
Cancelled in bad weather	6.5%	5.3%
Cancelled in normal hours	1.5%	1.4%
Arrived on time, bad weather	64.3%	65.1%
Arrived on time, normal hours	78.2%	79.7%
Departures in bad weather	32,038	60,840

Republic Airways (7.7% cancelled against 6.2% for the other carriers at PHL) cancelled more departures from PHL in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly better. One more carrier flies this route but has too few bad-weather departures from PHL to compare.

This route’s airlines in bad weather at PHL

All departures from PHL

Cancellation rates in bad weather at PHL for the airlines that fly PHL to BOS, against the other carriers at PHL in the same months
Airline	Bad-weather departures	Cancelled	Other carriers
American Airlines	14,281	6.4%about level	6.8%
Frontier Airlines	3,603	6.5%about level	6.2%
Republic Airways	2,585	7.7%above the others	6.2%

These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from PHL and BOS, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from PHL on every route.

Weather source and limits. In full: PHL (airlines), BOS, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.

Airlines on this route

Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.

Airlines on this route
Carrier	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Severe
American Airlines	7,371	72.2%	2.29%	-6 min	12.7%
Republic Airways	4,495	81.9%	2.27%	-10 min	7.9%
JetBlue	2,901	77.0%	2.31%	-10 min	9.8%
Frontier Airlines	725	76.4%	2.07%	-6 min	8.2%

American Airlines flew 47.6% of the 15,492 flights listed.

Republic Airways arrived on time 9.7 percentage points more often than American Airlines on this route.

Flights on this route

Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.

Flights on this route
Flight	Scheduled	Operations	On time
AA1874 American Airlines	9:15 PM	964	71.9%
AA1776 American Airlines	5:55 PM	765	68.7%
YX5740 Republic Airways	6:00 AM	757	92.5%
B61160 JetBlue	10:15 AM	663	83.8%

YX5740 (6:00 AM) arrived on time 92.5% of the time, 23.8 points more often than AA1776 (5:55 PM) at 68.7%.

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon73.2%

Tue78.8%

Wed80.2%

Thu73.6%

Fri74.2%

Sat79.9%

Sun73.8%

Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 7.0 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

July is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 18.6 percentage points.

Reliability over time

July 2023 – July 2026

24

25

26

Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.1% against 77.2% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.1 percentage points.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 15,492 PHL → BOS flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.

Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

PHL airport BOS airport Return direction BOS → PHL

PHL→BOS

Right now

Route reliability

What stands out

Why PHL → BOS flights are cancelled

Share of cancellations

What each reason means

When it goes wrong

Will your connection be tight enough?

Best time to fly

By day and hour

By departure window

By departure hour

Why PHL → BOS runs late

How this route holds up in bad weather

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

This route’s airlines in bad weather at PHL

Airlines on this route

Flights on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology