Route reliability record
AUS→JFK
Austin to New York
- Flights
- 2,160
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,521 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,160 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,278 at 83.3% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,094 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.59%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
83.3% on time across 1,278 flights
These figures cover 2,160 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to JFK
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,278 | 83.3% | 80 min | 2.03% | B |
| American Airlines | 882 | 77.5% | 91 min | 3.40% | B− |
American Airlines cancels 3.4% 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.
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 23 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am705 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am17 flights—
- 11am–2pm545 flights83.6%
- 2pm–5pm543 flights67.4%
- 5pm–8pm350 flights78.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.6% of the time, against 67.4% for the afternoon window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 705 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 68.4% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 89.6%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 208 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.0%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 34,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 31%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% 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 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 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 34,012 reported delay minutes.
32% 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 11,000 minutes out of 34,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.59%, against 1.81% 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,521 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 82.2% on time across 2,160 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 2,160 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.6% on time and July 68.4%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,094 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AUS to JFK questions
How often is AUS to JFK delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.1% of the 2,160 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to JFK?
Delta Air Lines leads at 83.3% on time across 1,278 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 77.5%, a gap of 6 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 AUS to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.4%, 23 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 AUS to JFK?
July is the weakest month at 68.4% on time, compared with 89.6% in September. Across the year that is 21 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 AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.3%
- American Airlines on-time record77.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. AUS to JFK and JFK to AUS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.