Carrier route record

DLAUS→JFK

Delta Air Lines · Austin to New York

Flights: 1,278
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 59%
Carriers: 2

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

Delta on AUS to JFK lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,278 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's AUS to JFK record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,246 completed flights

Avg delay

80 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.03%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.9%

Every carrier on AUS to JFK, 2,160 flights

These figures cover 1,278 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on AUS to JFK

Delta flew 1,278 of the 2,160 flights on AUS to JFK, most of the route. Its 83.3% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 80.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.3% to American at 77.5%.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on AUS to JFK
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines (this page)	1,278	83.3%	80 min	2.03%	B
American Airlines	882	77.5%	91 min	3.40%	B−

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on AUS to JFK

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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am364 flights92.7%
8am–11am—
11am–2pm359 flights86.3%
2pm–5pm213 flights69.5%
5pm–8pm342 flights78.9%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.7% of the time, against 69.5% 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 364 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on AUS to JFK through the year

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

July is the worst month at 71.3% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 94.7%. 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 120 flights.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 91.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 77.1%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 17,000 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
37%
Carrier
35%
Late-arriving aircraft
28%
Extreme weather
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 5,773 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,571 reported delay minutes.

37% 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 6,106 minutes out of 17,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 2.03% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.47%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.3% 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 last a little over an hour, 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 83.7% on time across 1,278 flights, within half 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 1,278 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 AUS to JFK

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 94.7% on time and July 71.3%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,246 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures