Carrier route record

DLATL→JFK

Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to New York

Flights: 2,445
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 58%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on ATL to JFK lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,445 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Frontier Airlines, flew 659 at 70.1% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on ATL to JFK from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

78.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,397 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.55%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

74.6%

Every carrier on ATL to JFK, 4,218 flights

These figures cover 2,445 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

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Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on ATL to JFK

Delta flew 2,445 of the 4,218 flights on ATL to JFK, most of the route. Its 78.4% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 78.4% to JetBlue at 68.6%.

The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on ATL to JFK
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines (this page)	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

Delta flight numbers on ATL to JFK

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Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am324 flights88.4%
8am–11am413 flights90.4%
11am–2pm390 flights80.8%
2pm–5pm391 flights76.4%
5pm–8pm461 flights64.8%
8pm–5am466 flights73.8%

Scale runs 55% to 95%.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.8% on time, against 90.4% for the 8am–11am 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 466 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on ATL to JFK through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, July worst

July is the worst month at 61.3% on time, 27 points below September, the best at 87.9%. 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 218 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.7%, a spread of 6 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Delta on ATL to JFK runs when it is late

Delta on ATL to JFK often beats the schedule: 712 of 2,397 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 517 late arrivals split 157 under half an hour, 172 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 188 an hour or more.

15+ min early712 flights29.7%
Within 15 min1,168 flights48.7%
15–29 min late157 flights6.5%
30–59 min late172 flights7.2%
1–2 hours late105 flights4.4%
2+ hours late83 flights3.5%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 2,397 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

153 of 591 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. 79 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for Delta on ATL to JFK

The latest arrival of the period was on 26 December 2025, 14 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across December, March, July and October, with no single month standing out.

The latest arrivals of Delta on ATL to JFK in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
26 December 2025	14 hours 53 minutes	Extreme weather
16 March 2026	12 hours 16 minutes	Carrier
21 July 2026	8 hours 52 minutes	National Airspace System
30 October 2025	7 hours 45 minutes	National Airspace System
23 December 2025	7 hours 8 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

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 38,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
42%
National Airspace System
39%
Late-arriving aircraft
13%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 37,506 reported delay minutes.

39% 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 15,000 minutes out of 38,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 1.55% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.8% 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.

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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.4% on time across 2,453 flights, 3 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 3 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,445 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.

What to do with this

Booking Delta on ATL to JFK

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 87.9% on time and July 61.3%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,397 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures