Carrier performance at one airport
AA→JFK
American Airlines at John F. Kennedy International
- Departures
- 14,636
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Routes
- 12
- Rank here
- #1 of 6
American Airlines at New York lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 14,636 flights, of which American Airlines flew 14,636 at 79.0% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, American Airlines runs 4 points ahead of the 75.1% weighted average across all carriers at JFK. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
79.0%
14,205 completed departures
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.63%
At JFK, this carrier only
Rank here
#1
Of 6 carriers clearing the floor at JFK
These figures cover 15,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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.
Against the competition
Every carrier at JFK, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 79.0% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 68.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,796 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 14,636 | 79.0% | 95 min | 2.63% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 30,747 | 77.6% | 73 min | 2.55% | B |
| Republic Airways | 15,252 | 77.2% | 72 min | 4.66% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 35,277 | 71.8% | 73 min | 3.19% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 3,934 | 68.5% | 63 min | 2.77% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 2,796 | 68.2% | 83 min | 2.29% | C |
Republic Airways cancels 4.7% 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.
Route by route
Where American Airlines flies from JFK
American Airlines operates 12 routes out of JFK with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JFK to LAX · Los Angeles | 3,239 | 80.1% | 98 min | 1.95% | B |
| JFK to MIA · Miami | 2,656 | 76.4% | 95 min | 2.97% | B |
| JFK to CLT · Charlotte | 1,829 | 79.6% | 102 min | 3.01% | B− |
| JFK to PHX · Phoenix | 1,468 | 82.0% | 95 min | 2.38% | B |
| JFK to SFO · San Francisco | 1,421 | 77.6% | 71 min | 2.67% | B |
| JFK to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 1,379 | 76.7% | 96 min | 2.10% | B |
| JFK to AUS · Austin | 852 | 80.8% | 115 min | 3.52% | B− |
| JFK to ORD · Chicago | 566 | 72.3% | 91 min | 4.95% | C− |
| JFK to LAS · Las Vegas | 430 | 83.9% | 110 min | 1.63% | B |
| JFK to SNA · Santa Ana | 376 | 84.2% | 65 min | 1.86% | B |
| JFK to STT · Charlotte Amaliethin sample | 305 | 81.4% | 126 min | 2.62% | B |
| JFK to EGE · Eaglethin sample | 110 | 77.5% | 96 min | 5.45% | B− |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am3,197 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am2,787 flights83.5%
- 11am–2pm2,171 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm2,440 flights75.4%
- 5pm–8pm2,789 flights70.4%
- 8pm–5am1,252 flights68.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.7% of the time, against 68.7% for the overnight window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 70.8% on time, against 84.8% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% 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 284,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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.
Cancellations run at 2.63%, against 1.80% nationally. That is about 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.
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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.
14,636 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 84.8% on time and December 70.8%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else.
Common questions
American Airlines at JFK
How often is American Airlines at JFK delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.0% of the 14,636 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on American Airlines at JFK?
American Airlines leads at 79.0% on time across 14,636 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 68.2%, a gap of 11 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 American Airlines at JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.7%, 19 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 December delays on American Airlines at JFK?
December is the weakest month at 70.8% on time, compared with 84.8% in April. Across the year that is 14 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
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.