Carrier performance at one airport
B6→JFK
JetBlue Airways at John F. Kennedy International
- Departures
- 35,277
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #4 of 6
JetBlue Airways at New York sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 35,277 flights, of which American Airlines flew 14,636 at 79.0% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, JetBlue Airways runs 3 points behind 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
71.8%
34,056 completed departures
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
3.19%
At JFK, this carrier only
Rank here
#4
Of 6 carriers clearing the floor at JFK
These figures cover 35,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% 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 | 30,747 | 77.6% | 73 min | 2.55% | B |
| Republic Airways | 15,252 | 77.2% | 72 min | 4.66% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways (this page) | 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 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.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JFK to LAX · Los Angeles | 3,508 | 76.5% | 69 min | 1.97% | B |
| JFK to MCO · Orlando | 2,629 | 69.8% | 78 min | 3.08% | C− |
| JFK to BOS · Boston | 2,477 | 69.1% | 78 min | 3.84% | C− |
| JFK to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 2,282 | 68.7% | 68 min | 3.77% | C− |
| JFK to SJU · San Juan | 2,232 | 69.2% | 72 min | 2.82% | C |
| JFK to SFO · San Francisco | 1,946 | 77.8% | 79 min | 2.00% | B |
| JFK to PBI · West Palm Beach | 1,469 | 69.5% | 74 min | 3.47% | C− |
| JFK to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,374 | 81.9% | 67 min | 2.33% | B |
| JFK to BUF · Buffalo | 1,213 | 73.9% | 87 min | 4.29% | C− |
| JFK to ATL · Atlanta | 1,064 | 68.3% | 74 min | 4.23% | C− |
| JFK to TPA · Tampa | 1,027 | 76.4% | 72 min | 3.89% | B− |
| JFK to RDU · Raleigh | 917 | 70.2% | 75 min | 4.25% | C− |
| JFK to JAX · Jacksonville | 892 | 73.3% | 76 min | 3.48% | C− |
| JFK to RSW · Fort Myers | 809 | 72.2% | 73 min | 3.83% | C− |
| JFK to SAN · San Diego | 727 | 86.6% | 58 min | 2.34% | A |
| JFK to CHS · Charleston | 635 | 73.5% | 74 min | 3.15% | C− |
| JFK to ROC · Rochester | 600 | 68.4% | 78 min | 3.33% | C− |
| JFK to ORD · Chicago | 550 | 67.6% | 77 min | 3.64% | C− |
| JFK to DEN · Denver | 545 | 68.0% | 55 min | 2.39% | C |
| JFK to BNA · Nashville | 542 | 67.6% | 66 min | 4.80% | C− |
| JFK to PHX · Phoenix | 531 | 73.6% | 65 min | 2.64% | C |
| JFK to BQN · Aguadilla | 526 | 65.7% | 62 min | 2.66% | C |
| JFK to SAV · Savannah | 464 | 74.9% | 69 min | 3.45% | C− |
| JFK to PIT · Pittsburgh | 454 | 66.7% | 76 min | 5.29% | C− |
| JFK to DCA · Washington | 446 | 54.5% | 85 min | 5.16% | 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 27 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am5,532 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am6,567 flights79.4%
- 11am–2pm4,076 flights75.4%
- 2pm–5pm5,213 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm5,863 flights63.1%
- 8pm–5am8,026 flights61.3%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.3% on time, against 88.1% 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
Seasonal pattern
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.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
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 699,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 3.19%, against 1.80% 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. 11.7% 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.
35,277 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 3.19% 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.
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 28.2% of the 35,277 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 JetBlue Airways 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 JetBlue Airways at JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.3%, 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 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.