Route reliability record
CHS→JFK
Charleston to New York
- Flights
- 785
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 636 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 785 CHS to JFK flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly CHS to JFK: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.9% of the time and Monday flights 77.9%, against 73.8% for the route overall.
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
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 745 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
JetBlue
72.8% on time across 633 flights
These figures cover 785 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 CHS 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 150 | 77.9% | 71 min | 9.33% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 633 | 72.8% | 85 min | 4.11% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on CHS 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charleston 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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CHS → EWRCharleston to Newark | United Airlines | 81.7% | 83.4% | 1.99% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 674 11:20 |
| 2. CHS → LGACharleston to New York | Republic Airways | 74.3% | 78.7% | 5.59% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. CHS → JFKCharleston to New York | JetBlue Airways | 69.8% | 72.8% | 4.11% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 2474 11:00 |
| 4. CHS → LGACharleston to New York | Delta Air Lines | 62.1% | 64.8% | 4.22% | 11am–2pm, Fri | — |
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 34 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–8am99 flights84.4%
- 8am–11am90 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm304 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm49 flights78.7%
- 5pm–8pm183 flights64.4%
- 8pm–5am60 flights50.9%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 50.9% on time, against 84.9% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 304 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 44 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 48.1% on time, 44 points below September, the best at 91.7%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 83 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 77.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.6%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
48% 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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 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 16,190 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.10%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 636 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 75.3% on time across 787 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 785 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
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 5.10% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 745 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CHS to JFK questions
How often is CHS 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 26.2% of the 785 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is CHS to JFK compared with the rest of the country?
73.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CHS to JFK?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 50.9%, 34 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 CHS to JFK?
July is the weakest month at 48.1% on time, compared with 91.7% in September. Across the year that is 44 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 CHS — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on CHS to JFK77.9%
- JetBlue Airways on CHS to JFK72.8%
- CHS to ATL, a related route90.2%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- CHS to CLT, a related route83.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record72.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CHS to JFK and JFK to CHS 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.