Route reliability record
ATL→JFK
Atlanta to New York
- Flights
- 4,218
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 760 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,218 ATL to JFK flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,445 at 78.4% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.7%, against 74.6% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.4% on time across 2,445 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,086 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.80%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
78.4% on time across 2,445 flights
These figures cover 4,218 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to JFK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 78.4% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 68.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,114 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,445 | 78.4% | 73 min | 1.55% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 659 | 70.1% | 81 min | 2.28% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,114 | 68.6% | 93 min | 5.83% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 5.8% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to JFK
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to New York
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → JFKAtlanta to New York | Delta Air Lines | 77.2% | 78.4% | 1.55% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 2420 07:43 |
| 2. ATL → EWRAtlanta to Newark | United Airlines | 76.7% | 79.0% | 2.92% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 299 06:07 |
| 3. ATL → HPNAtlanta to White Plains | Delta Air Lines | 75.4% | 77.6% | 2.79% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 1616 19:59 |
| 4. ATL → LGAAtlanta to New York | Delta Air Lines | 73.3% | 75.9% | 3.48% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 404 06:00 |
| 5. ATL → LGAAtlanta to New York | Republic Airways | 71.1% | 75.5% | 5.88% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am732 flights84.2%
- 8am–11am857 flights82.1%
- 11am–2pm627 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm537 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm721 flights61.8%
- 8pm–5am744 flights68.2%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.8% on time, against 84.2% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 857 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to JFK by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ATL to JFK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.8%, a wide gap of 22.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.2%
- 8–11am82.1%
- 11am–2pm77.5%
- 2–5pm72.1%
- 5–8pm61.8%
- 8pm–5am68.2%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
July is the worst month at 61.1% on time, 24 points below September, the best at 84.7%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 400 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.9%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 84,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 30,000 of the 84,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 83,539 reported delay minutes.
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 84.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.80%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 760 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 75.5% on time across 4,227 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,218 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in JFK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.80% 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. 4,086 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to JFK questions
How often is ATL to 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 25.4% of the 4,218 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 ATL to JFK?
Delta Air Lines leads at 78.4% on time across 2,445 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 68.6%, a gap of 10 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 ATL to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.8%, 22 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 ATL to JFK?
July is the weakest month at 61.1% on time, compared with 84.7% in September. Across the year that is 24 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
- JFK to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to JFK78.4%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to JFK70.1%
- JetBlue Airways on ATL to JFK68.6%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record70.1%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record68.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ATL to JFK and JFK to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.