Route reliability record
DFW→JFK
Dallas-Fort Worth to New York
- Flights
- 1,948
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,391 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.2% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,948 DFW to JFK flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 373 at 89.9% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.5%, against 74.6% 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
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,869 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.23%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
89.9% on time across 373 flights
These figures cover 1,948 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to JFK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 89.9% of the time; American Airlines manages 69.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,466 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 109 | 93.5% | 43 min | 0.92% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 373 | 89.9% | 94 min | 6.17% | A− |
| American Airlines | 1,466 | 69.4% | 77 min | 2.66% | C |
Delta Air Lines cancels 6.2% 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 DFW 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth 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. DFW → JFKDallas-Fort Worth to New York | Delta Air Lines | 84.4% | 89.9% | 6.17% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 454 08:00 |
| 2. DFW → EWRDallas-Fort Worth to Newark | United Airlines | 76.1% | 78.3% | 2.83% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 1847 07:00 |
| 3. DFW → LGADallas-Fort Worth to New York | Delta Air Lines | 68.7% | 72.5% | 5.24% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 869 16:50 |
| 4. DFW → JFKDallas-Fort Worth to New York | American Airlines | 67.6% | 69.4% | 2.66% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1766 09:53 |
| 5. DFW → EWRDallas-Fort Worth to Newark | American Airlines | 63.5% | 66.2% | 4.03% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 31 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am452 flights87.1%
- 8am–11am627 flights81.8%
- 11am–2pm491 flights66.7%
- 2pm–5pm209 flights58.3%
- 5pm–8pm169 flights56.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.1% on time, against 87.1% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 627 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW 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 DFW to JFK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 56.1%, a wide gap of 31.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.1%
- 8–11am81.8%
- 11am–2pm66.7%
- 2–5pm58.3%
- 5–8pm56.1%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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 54.9% on time, 30 points below February, the best at 84.8%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 187 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 66.8%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 37,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 36,818 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 87.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.23%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
9.7% 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.
The 1,391 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.
The return leg runs 75.9% on time across 1,953 flights, within about 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 1,948 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 3.23% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 1,869 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to JFK questions
How often is DFW 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 25.4% of the 1,948 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to JFK?
Delta Air Lines leads at 89.9% on time across 373 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 69.4%, a gap of 21 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 DFW to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.1%, 31 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 DFW to JFK?
July is the weakest month at 54.9% on time, compared with 84.8% in February. Across the year that is 30 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 DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to JFK93.5%
- Delta Air Lines on DFW to JFK89.9%
- American Airlines on DFW to JFK69.4%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record93.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record89.9%
- American Airlines on-time record69.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DFW to JFK and JFK to DFW 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.