Carrier route record
B6DCA→JFK
JetBlue Airways · Washington to New York
- Flights
- 445
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 18%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with JetBlue Airways.
JetBlue on DCA to JFK lands a B−, 4 points 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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 445 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, JetBlue's DCA to JFK record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 418 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.07%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.0%
Every carrier on DCA to JFK, 2,486 flights
These figures cover 445 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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
JetBlue against every carrier on DCA to JFK
JetBlue flew 445 of the 2,486 flights on DCA to JFK, about 18% of it. Its 81.3% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 81.3% to Republic at 76.0%.
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 (this page) | 445 | 81.3% | 85 min | 6.07% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 2,041 | 76.0% | 71 min | 5.98% | B− |
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.
Departure window
When JetBlue runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 38 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights88.3%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm81 flights50.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 50.6% on time, against 88.3% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
JetBlue on DCA to JFK through the year
- Jul–Sep 202554 flights83.3%
- Oct–Dec 2025149 flights68.8%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights84.1%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights95.5%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights84.9%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 81.3% on time across 445 flights.
JetBlue on DCA to JFK did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 95.5% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 68.8%, a swing of 27 points on roughly 89 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 75.4%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late JetBlue on DCA to JFK runs when it is late
JetBlue on DCA to JFK often beats the schedule: 138 of 418 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 78 late arrivals split 19 under half an hour, 22 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 37 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early138 flights33.0%
- Within 15 min202 flights48.3%
- 15–29 min late19 flights4.5%
- 30–59 min late22 flights5.3%
- 1–2 hours late18 flights4.3%
- 2+ hours late19 flights4.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 418 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 61 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 4 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 21 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at JFK.
The worst days
Worst days for JetBlue on DCA to JFK
The latest arrival of the period was on 1 August 2026, 7 hours 22 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 1 August 2026 | 7 hours 22 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 August 2026 | 6 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 September 2025 | 5 hours 13 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 January 2026 | 4 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 October 2025 | 3 hours 40 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why JetBlue 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 6,654 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,654 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 to one. The split is drawn from 6,654 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,606 of the 6,654 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 6.07%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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 costs
8.9% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 213 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 52.7% on time across 445 flights, 29 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 29 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 445 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.
What to do with this
Booking JetBlue on DCA to JFK
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.07% 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. 418 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to JFK, every carrier
- JetBlue on JFK to DCA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on DCA to JFK76.0%
- JetBlue Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.