Route reliability record
BUF→JFK
Buffalo to New York
- Flights
- 1,225
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 301 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,225 BUF to JFK flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly BUF to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.0%, against 75.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
75.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,142 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
75.2% on time across 1,225 flights
These figures cover 1,225 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BUF to JFK
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 1,225 | 75.2% | 90 min | 6.61% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on BUF 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Buffalo 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BUF → LGABuffalo to New York | Republic Airways | 73.4% | 77.5% | 5.25% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | — |
| 2. BUF → JFKBuffalo to New York | JetBlue Airways | 70.2% | 75.2% | 6.61% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 2001 06:00 |
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am361 flights82.7%
- 8am–11am247 flights78.4%
- 11am–2pm82 flights75.3%
- 2pm–5pm176 flights68.8%
- 5pm–8pm154 flights69.6%
- 8pm–5am205 flights67.2%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 82.7% of the time, against 67.2% for the overnight window. That is 16 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 361 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BUF 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 BUF to JFK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 82.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 67.2%, a wide gap of 15.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am82.7%
- 8–11am78.4%
- 11am–2pm75.3%
- 2–5pm68.8%
- 5–8pm69.6%
- 8pm–5am67.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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 57.0% on time, 33 points below May, the best at 90.3%. 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 136 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.5%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 26,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 51 to one. The split is drawn from 25,576 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 82.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.61%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
12.5% 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.
At 301 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.0% on time across 1,226 flights, 3 points below 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 1,225 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 6.61% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,142 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BUF to JFK questions
How often is BUF 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 24.8% of the 1,225 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is BUF to JFK compared with the rest of the country?
75.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BUF to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 82.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.2%, 16 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 BUF to JFK?
July is the weakest month at 57.0% on time, compared with 90.3% in May. Across the year that is 33 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 BUF — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- BUF to ORD, a related route74.4%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- BUF to MCO, a related route75.4%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record75.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BUF to JFK and JFK to BUF are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed BUF to JFK’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.