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DelayAtlas

Carrier performance at one airport

B6JFK

JetBlue Airways at John F. Kennedy International

Departures
35,361
Period
July 2025 to June 2026
Routes
25
Rank here
#4 of 6
C−GRADE

JetBlue Airways at New York carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 35,361 flights, of which American Airlines flew 14,813 at 79.3% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, JetBlue Airways runs 3 points behind the 75.7% 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

72.3%

34,107 completed departures

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

3.27%

At JFK, this carrier only

Rank here

#4

Of 6 carriers clearing the floor at JFK

These figures cover 35,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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 79.3% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 68.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,528 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance of all carriers departing JFK
AirlineFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
American Airlines14,81379.3%95 min2.58%B
Republic Airways15,18978.0%72 min4.45%B−
Delta Air Lines30,72277.9%71 min2.51%B
JetBlue Airways (this page)35,36172.3%73 min3.27%C−
Alaska Airlines3,96170.4%64 min2.60%C
Frontier Airlines2,52868.7%84 min2.02%C

Republic Airways cancels 4.5% 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 JetBlue Airways flies from JFK

JetBlue Airways 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.

JetBlue Airways routes from JFK
RouteFlightsOn timeAvg delayCancelledGrade
JFK to LAX · Los Angeles3,48675.6%69 min2.01%B
JFK to MCO · Orlando2,61470.8%78 min3.10%C−
JFK to BOS · Boston2,46069.7%79 min4.07%C−
JFK to FLL · Fort Lauderdale2,27070.0%69 min3.96%C−
JFK to SJU · San Juan2,23269.5%74 min2.91%C
JFK to SFO · San Francisco1,94576.7%75 min2.01%B
JFK to PBI · West Palm Beach1,47671.0%72 min3.59%C−
JFK to LAS · Las Vegas1,37582.4%65 min2.25%B
JFK to BUF · Buffalo1,21875.0%88 min4.52%B−
JFK to ATL · Atlanta1,07968.3%71 min3.99%C−
JFK to TPA · Tampa1,04975.9%74 min3.91%B−
JFK to RDU · Raleigh92571.8%75 min4.22%C−
JFK to JAX · Jacksonville89174.4%73 min3.59%C−
JFK to RSW · Fort Myers80973.4%73 min3.58%C−
JFK to SAN · San Diego72785.7%61 min2.48%A
JFK to CHS · Charleston63474.1%73 min3.79%C−
JFK to ROC · Rochester60671.0%78 min3.63%C−
JFK to ORD · Chicago57267.7%82 min3.85%C−
JFK to DEN · Denver54568.7%55 min2.75%C
JFK to BNA · Nashville53971.3%58 min4.64%C−
JFK to PHX · Phoenix53173.0%64 min2.82%C
JFK to BQN · Aguadilla50065.8%65 min2.60%C
JFK to SAV · Savannah46976.6%72 min3.84%B−
JFK to PIT · Pittsburgh45468.1%74 min5.07%C−
JFK to DCA · Washington44654.5%84 min5.16%F−

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 25 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

  • 5am–8am5,664 flights87.9%
  • 8am–11am6,564 flights79.7%
  • 11am–2pm4,114 flights75.6%
  • 2pm–5pm5,251 flights68.3%
  • 5pm–8pm5,837 flights63.3%
  • 8pm–5am7,931 flights62.5%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.5% on time, against 87.9% 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. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 7,931 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

On-time rate by calendar month70J71F74M79A83M71J61J73A79S71O74N62D
Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.May best, July worst

July is the worst month at 61.1% on time, 22 points below May, the best at 82.7%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 3,365 flights.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

  • Late-arriving aircraft
    42%
  • Carrier
    29%
  • National Airspace System
    25%
  • Extreme weather
    4%
  • Security
    0%

42% 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 685,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 split is drawn from 684,639 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 3.27%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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.

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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.

35,361 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 3.27% 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. 34,107 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

JetBlue Airways at JFK

How often is JetBlue Airways 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 27.7% of the 35,361 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on JetBlue Airways at JFK?

American Airlines leads at 79.3% on time across 14,813 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 68.7%, 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 JetBlue Airways at JFK?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.5%, 25 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 July delays on JetBlue Airways at JFK?

July is the weakest month at 61.1% on time, compared with 82.7% in May. Across the year that is 22 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.