Carrier performance at one airport
DL→JFK
Delta Air Lines at John F. Kennedy International
- Departures
- 30,747
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #2 of 6
Delta Air Lines at New York lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.4%. Roughly one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 30,747 flights, of which American Airlines flew 14,636 at 79.0% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs 2 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
77.6%
29,862 completed departures
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.55%
At JFK, this carrier only
Rank here
#2
Of 6 carriers clearing the floor at JFK
These figures cover 31,000 flights between June 2025 and May 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.
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 | 14,636 | 79.0% | 95 min | 2.63% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 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 Delta Air Lines flies from JFK
Delta Air Lines operates 25 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 | 3,357 | 78.2% | 74 min | 1.76% | B |
| JFK to ATL · Atlanta | 2,461 | 81.1% | 85 min | 1.63% | B |
| JFK to SFO · San Francisco | 2,230 | 72.8% | 71 min | 1.35% | C |
| JFK to MCO · Orlando | 1,979 | 77.0% | 69 min | 3.08% | B− |
| JFK to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,682 | 79.1% | 59 min | 2.38% | B |
| JFK to MIA · Miami | 1,620 | 74.4% | 78 min | 3.33% | C− |
| JFK to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,614 | 75.5% | 71 min | 3.59% | B− |
| JFK to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,535 | 80.8% | 63 min | 1.63% | B |
| JFK to SEA · Seattle | 1,338 | 72.5% | 54 min | 2.24% | C |
| JFK to AUS · Austin | 1,275 | 81.9% | 64 min | 2.20% | B |
| JFK to SJU · San Juan | 1,104 | 78.9% | 62 min | 1.99% | B |
| JFK to TPA · Tampa | 1,094 | 78.3% | 80 min | 3.02% | B− |
| JFK to SAN · San Diego | 1,033 | 76.7% | 57 min | 3.00% | B |
| JFK to DEN · Denver | 984 | 71.5% | 75 min | 2.74% | C |
| JFK to PHX · Phoenix | 920 | 74.2% | 65 min | 3.26% | C− |
| JFK to MSP · Minneapolis | 773 | 80.5% | 111 min | 1.42% | B |
| JFK to DTW · Detroit | 771 | 78.9% | 116 min | 1.95% | B |
| JFK to PBI · West Palm Beach | 729 | 79.0% | 71 min | 4.80% | B− |
| JFK to MSY · New Orleans | 721 | 83.5% | 72 min | 4.99% | B− |
| JFK to PDX · Portland | 550 | 71.4% | 65 min | 2.36% | C |
| JFK to RSW · Fort Myers | 472 | 87.5% | 72 min | 4.66% | A− |
| JFK to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 464 | 71.5% | 104 min | 4.53% | C− |
| JFK to BOS · Boston | 368 | 66.4% | 102 min | 2.99% | C |
| JFK to SAT · San Antoniothin sample | 362 | 89.7% | 120 min | 3.87% | A− |
| JFK to HNL · Honoluluthin sample | 297 | 77.4% | 57 min | 1.35% | 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 16 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am4,964 flights85.3%
- 8am–11am5,401 flights82.8%
- 11am–2pm5,286 flights83.3%
- 2pm–5pm5,272 flights74.5%
- 5pm–8pm6,532 flights69.0%
- 8pm–5am3,292 flights69.8%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.3% of the time, against 69.0% for the evening window. That is 16 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 67.0% on time, against 84.6% in August. 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
- 41%Carrier
- 34%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
34% 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 165,000 minutes out of 490,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.55%, 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.
8.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
30,747 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. August runs 84.6% on time and December 67.0%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else.
Common questions
Delta Air Lines at JFK
How often is Delta Air Lines at JFK delayed?
Roughly 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 22.4% of the 30,747 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Delta Air Lines 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 Delta Air Lines at JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.0%, 16 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 Delta Air Lines at JFK?
December is the weakest month at 67.0% on time, compared with 84.6% in August. Across the year that is 18 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.