Route reliability record
DEN→JFK
Denver to New York
- Flights
- 1,572
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,626 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,572 DEN to JFK flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 978 at 87.0% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.8%, against 81.0% 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
81.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,522 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.80%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
87.0% on time across 978 flights
These figures cover 1,572 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 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
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to JFK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.0% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 69.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 545 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 978 | 87.0% | 80 min | 2.45% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 49 | 85.7% | 66 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 545 | 69.7% | 98 min | 3.67% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.7% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN 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 Denver 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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → JFKDenver to New York | Delta Air Lines | 84.9% | 87.0% | 2.45% | 8pm–5am, Tue | DL 336 07:10 |
| 2. DEN → EWRDenver to Newark | United Airlines | 76.3% | 77.5% | 1.58% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2345 06:00 |
| 3. DEN → LGADenver to New York | Delta Air Lines | 75.5% | 79.0% | 4.44% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 398 06:25 |
| 4. DEN → LGADenver to New York | United Airlines | 72.6% | 74.0% | 1.83% | 8am–11am, Sat | UA 2446 09:54 |
| 5. DEN → JFKDenver to New York | JetBlue Airways | 67.1% | 69.7% | 3.67% | 11am–2pm, Tue | B6 98 23:59 |
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 26 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am379 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am59 flights80.4%
- 11am–2pm589 flights77.8%
- 2pm–5pm39 flights63.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am506 flights79.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.6% of the time, against 63.2% for the afternoon window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 589 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 62.0% on time, 29 points below April, the best at 90.7%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 157 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 77.6%. 11 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. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 26,000 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.
- 47%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, 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 12,000 of the 26,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 25,896 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 89.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.80%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
7.5% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,626 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.4% on time across 1,572 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,572 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 2.80% 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. 1,522 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to JFK questions
How often is DEN to JFK delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.0% of the 1,572 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 DEN to JFK?
Delta Air Lines leads at 87.0% on time across 978 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 69.7%, a gap of 17 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 DEN to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 63.2%, 26 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 DEN to JFK?
July is the weakest month at 62.0% on time, compared with 90.7% in April. Across the year that is 29 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 DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DEN to JFK87.0%
- JetBlue Airways on DEN to JFK69.7%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.7%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- DEN to SLC, a related route77.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record85.7%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record69.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DEN to JFK and JFK to DEN 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.