Airline on-time record

B6

JetBlue Airways

Flights: 232,617
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Airports: 25
US rank: #10 by volume

JetBlue Airways sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 232,617 flights, of which San Diego (SAN) flew 1,642 at 81.1% on time.

San Diego (SAN) is the most reliable of the 25 airports covered here at 81.1% on time across 1,642 flights.

On time

72.4%

National average is 77.4%

Avg delay

76 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

2.50%

National rate is 1.80%

Largest base

BOS

37,535 departures, 72.1% on time

These figures cover 233,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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.

Airport by airport

Where JetBlue Airways runs well, and where it does not

The choice of airport is not cosmetic here. San Diego (SAN) arrives on time 81.1% of the time; New York (LGA) manages 65.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 4,482 flights means less than a ten-point one.

JetBlue Airways on-time performance by departure airport
Airport	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
BOS · Boston	37,535	72.1%	69 min	2.40%	C
JFK · New York	35,277	71.8%	73 min	3.19%	C−
FLL · Fort Lauderdale	21,594	68.2%	67 min	2.15%	C
MCO · Orlando	18,479	71.2%	75 min	1.98%	C
SJU · San Juan	11,597	75.2%	75 min	1.87%	B
PBI · West Palm Beach	8,865	70.7%	78 min	3.00%	C
LAX · Los Angeles	7,717	76.4%	73 min	1.72%	B
DCA · Washington	6,695	68.8%	83 min	2.79%	C
HPN · White Plains	5,342	76.8%	78 min	2.00%	B
TPA · Tampa	5,214	73.5%	74 min	2.57%	C
EWR · Newark	5,189	73.6%	83 min	3.10%	C−
LGA · New York	4,482	65.7%	82 min	3.57%	C−
SFO · San Francisco	4,340	80.0%	75 min	1.57%	B
RSW · Fort Myers	4,205	71.8%	84 min	2.64%	C
BDL · Hartford	3,988	72.8%	70 min	2.11%	C
LAS · Las Vegas	3,865	78.1%	80 min	1.89%	B
BUF · Buffalo	3,419	76.2%	84 min	2.87%	B
RDU · Raleigh	2,875	77.0%	76 min	2.75%	B
PVD · Providence	2,677	77.3%	68 min	1.98%	B
ATL · Atlanta	2,469	70.5%	92 min	3.52%	C−
RIC · Richmond	1,983	75.6%	82 min	2.67%	B
PIT · Pittsburgh	1,672	78.6%	87 min	3.35%	B−
SAN · San Diego	1,642	81.1%	105 min	2.13%	B
JAX · Jacksonville	1,623	72.8%	68 min	3.57%	C−
CHS · Charleston	1,609	72.0%	76 min	2.30%	C

Jacksonville (JAX) cancels 3.6% 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

Busiest JetBlue Airways routes

These are the 25 routes JetBlue Airways flies most often, each against its network-wide 72.4%. Route-level variation inside a single airline is routinely wider than the gap between two airlines nationally.

Busiest JetBlue Airways routes by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
JFK to LAX	3,508	76.5%	69 min	1.97%	B
LAX to JFK	3,507	78.2%	73 min	2.20%	B
DCA to BOS	2,645	65.2%	87 min	3.59%	C−
BOS to DCA	2,645	69.2%	71 min	3.48%	C−
MCO to JFK	2,639	68.3%	81 min	3.03%	C−
JFK to MCO	2,629	69.8%	78 min	3.08%	C−
BOS to MCO	2,491	68.2%	73 min	2.85%	C
MCO to BOS	2,490	67.4%	77 min	3.09%	C−
JFK to BOS	2,477	69.1%	78 min	3.84%	C−
BOS to JFK	2,472	73.6%	81 min	3.96%	C−
JFK to FLL	2,282	68.7%	68 min	3.77%	C−
FLL to JFK	2,271	64.2%	72 min	3.83%	D−
SJU to JFK	2,238	75.1%	78 min	3.08%	B−
JFK to SJU	2,232	69.2%	72 min	2.82%	C
MCO to SJU	2,097	76.1%	71 min	0.95%	B+
SJU to MCO	2,095	77.3%	73 min	0.95%	B+
BOS to FLL	1,960	65.8%	68 min	3.11%	C−
FLL to BOS	1,949	65.5%	77 min	2.92%	C
JFK to SFO	1,946	77.8%	79 min	2.00%	B
SFO to JFK	1,945	82.2%	78 min	1.90%	B
LAX to FLL	1,722	75.3%	62 min	0.93%	B+
FLL to LAX	1,722	77.3%	59 min	0.75%	B+
HPN to PBI	1,638	73.7%	80 min	2.32%	C
PBI to HPN	1,638	73.2%	73 min	2.75%	C
LAX to BOS	1,623	76.2%	78 min	1.29%	B

Departure window

The best time of day to fly JetBlue Airways

Departure time matters more here than the choice of airport. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 points, against 15 points between the best and worst airport. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am42,537 flights87.8%
8am–11am41,353 flights80.9%
11am–2pm38,889 flights71.4%
2pm–5pm37,112 flights65.2%
5pm–8pm36,148 flights60.9%
8pm–5am36,578 flights64.6%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.9% on time, against 87.8% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in.

Across the year

JetBlue Airways through the calendar

JetBlue's year swings by 18 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.May best, December worst

December is the weak month at 63.9% on time, against 81.4% in May. 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.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.3%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

What holds JetBlue Airways up

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 4.70 million 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
43%
Carrier
27%
National Airspace System
27%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

43% 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 4.70 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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 practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.8% on time here.

Cancellations run at 2.50%, 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. 11.4% 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.

232,617 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.

What to do with this

Booking JetBlue Airways

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 81.4% on time and December 63.9%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else.

Common questions

JetBlue Airways reliability questions

How often is JetBlue Airways 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 27.6% of the 232,617 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airport does JetBlue Airways run best from?

San Diego (SAN) leads at 81.1% on time across 1,642 flights. New York (LGA) is at the other end on 65.7%, a gap of 15 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 JetBlue Airways?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.9%, 27 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 JetBlue Airways?

December is the weakest month at 63.9% on time, compared with 81.4% in May. 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.

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.

Key figures