Carrier performance at one airport
DL→JFK
Delta Air Lines at John F. Kennedy International
- Departures
- 30,645
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #3 of 6
Delta Air Lines at New York lands a B−, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 30,645 flights, of which American Airlines flew 15,348 at 77.8% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs 2 points ahead of the 74.3% 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
76.5%
29,630 completed departures
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
3.01%
At JFK, this carrier only
Rank here
#3
Of 6 carriers clearing the floor at JFK
These figures cover 31,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Against the competition
Every carrier at JFK, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 77.8% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 69.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,971 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 15,348 | 77.8% | 97 min | 2.93% | B |
| Republic Airways | 14,963 | 76.5% | 76 min | 5.38% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 30,645 | 76.5% | 71 min | 3.01% | B− |
| Alaska Airlines | 4,032 | 71.5% | 68 min | 2.80% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 35,630 | 70.7% | 75 min | 4.90% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,971 | 69.5% | 91 min | 2.33% | C |
Republic Airways cancels 5.4% 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 | 3,366 | 75.3% | 67 min | 2.55% | B |
| JFK to ATL · Atlanta | 2,453 | 81.4% | 89 min | 1.67% | B |
| JFK to SFO · San Francisco | 2,231 | 67.3% | 70 min | 2.20% | C |
| JFK to MCO · Orlando | 1,980 | 76.2% | 71 min | 3.23% | B− |
| JFK to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,676 | 76.4% | 57 min | 2.74% | B |
| JFK to MIA · Miami | 1,621 | 75.8% | 71 min | 3.45% | B− |
| JFK to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,614 | 75.3% | 66 min | 3.90% | B− |
| JFK to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,536 | 78.6% | 66 min | 1.95% | B |
| JFK to SEA · Seattle | 1,339 | 71.4% | 60 min | 3.21% | C− |
| JFK to AUS · Austin | 1,283 | 83.2% | 66 min | 3.20% | B− |
| JFK to SJU · San Juan | 1,104 | 77.4% | 61 min | 2.26% | B |
| JFK to TPA · Tampa | 1,094 | 79.7% | 69 min | 2.74% | B |
| JFK to SAN · San Diego | 1,046 | 75.5% | 54 min | 3.15% | B− |
| JFK to DEN · Denver | 937 | 73.7% | 69 min | 2.56% | C |
| JFK to PHX · Phoenix | 919 | 72.7% | 62 min | 3.48% | C− |
| JFK to DTW · Detroit | 770 | 80.2% | 94 min | 3.77% | B− |
| JFK to MSY · New Orleans | 720 | 81.6% | 79 min | 5.42% | B− |
| JFK to MSP · Minneapolis | 689 | 80.7% | 109 min | 1.89% | B |
| JFK to PBI · West Palm Beach | 667 | 80.9% | 75 min | 4.65% | B− |
| JFK to PDX · Portland | 550 | 70.3% | 64 min | 2.55% | C |
| JFK to RSW · Fort Myers | 472 | 85.7% | 71 min | 5.08% | A− |
| JFK to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 373 | 68.1% | 96 min | 6.43% | C− |
| JFK to BOS · Boston | 368 | 68.7% | 87 min | 3.53% | C− |
| JFK to SAT · San Antoniothin sample | 362 | 85.8% | 96 min | 4.42% | A− |
| JFK to HNL · Honoluluthin sample | 297 | 76.7% | 59 min | 2.36% | B |
Flight by flight
Delta Air Lines flight numbers from JFK
63 Delta Air Lines flight numbers leaving JFK flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.
- DL 2227to ATL 08:3083.4%
- DL 2286to ATL 06:0090.2%
- DL 2293to ATL 17:4076.3%
- DL 2342to ATL 12:2586.1%
- DL 1233to AUS 17:4076.8%
- DL 2323to AUS 12:5981.7%
- DL 2639to BOS 21:0068.2%
- DL 424to DEN 19:5066.4%
- DL 532to DEN 08:3082.4%
- DL 496to DFW 17:5567.7%
- DL 2443to DTW 16:3080.3%
- DL 305to FLL 11:2077.9%
- DL 1414to FLL 19:5566.2%
- DL 1419to FLL 15:2072.5%
- DL 1422to FLL 07:0086.6%
- DL 636to HNL 10:0076.7%
- DL 806to LAS 16:4578.2%
- DL 353to LAX 18:0070.5%
- DL 707to LAX 19:4570.9%
- DL 713to LAX 08:3574.6%
- DL 738to LAX 15:4072.7%
- DL 742to LAX 07:0075.5%
- DL 747to LAX 13:3077.6%
- DL 767to LAX 11:0084.4%
- DL 771to LAX 17:0074.2%
- DL 773to LAX 09:0078.6%
- DL 1685to MCO 15:0074.7%
- DL 1740to MCO 19:5965.1%
- DL 2019to MCO 09:0076.4%
- DL 2775to MCO 11:4078.4%
- DL 1428to MIA 19:5568.7%
- DL 1514to MIA 11:1077.0%
- DL 1528to MIA 07:0584.8%
- DL 2500to MIA 15:1070.8%
- DL 2414to MSP 11:3585.2%
- DL 1368to MSY 08:0084.6%
- DL 1387to MSY 16:3078.8%
- DL 1638to PBI 16:2073.1%
- DL 2018to PBI 07:0088.7%
- DL 684to PDX 17:5963.7%
- DL 791to PHX 08:0081.4%
- DL 798to PHX 17:3069.4%
- DL 2320to RSW 07:0086.7%
- DL 683to SAN 08:4578.3%
- DL 685to SAN 20:2971.9%
- DL 709to SAN 17:2574.5%
- DL 688to SEA 18:5964.4%
- DL 699to SEA 07:0073.5%
- DL 740to SEA 16:4068.6%
- DL 363to SFO 11:3068.3%
- DL 667to SFO 19:2555.7%
- DL 668to SFO 07:0071.8%
- DL 679to SFO 14:5572.7%
- DL 1859to SJU 18:5567.4%
- DL 1961to SJU 12:2583.6%
- DL 1966to SJU 08:0080.5%
- DL 863to SLC 18:4070.2%
- DL 887to SLC 16:1076.8%
- DL 892to SLC 06:0087.1%
- DL 917to SLC 11:1079.8%
- DL 1636to TPA 19:5973.3%
- DL 2042to TPA 07:0587.7%
- DL 2093to TPA 14:3078.0%
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 15 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am4,935 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am5,425 flights80.4%
- 11am–2pm5,361 flights81.0%
- 2pm–5pm5,319 flights74.2%
- 5pm–8pm6,395 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am3,210 flights69.4%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.0% of the time, against 68.9% for the evening window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 6,395 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 67.0% on time, against 84.5% in September. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 2,719 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 41%Carrier
- 36%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 177,000 minutes out of 493,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 492,982 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.01%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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.
8.6% 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.
30,645 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.01% 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. 29,630 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Delta Air Lines at JFK
How often is Delta Air Lines at JFK delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.5% of the 30,645 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 Delta Air Lines at JFK?
American Airlines leads at 77.8% on time across 15,348 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 69.5%, a gap of 8 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 84.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.9%, 15 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 84.5% in September. 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.