Route reliability record
DFW→JFK
Dallas-Fort Worth to New York
- Flights
- 2,009
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,391 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,009 DFW to JFK flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 434 at 88.8% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.5% of the time and Friday flights 83.2%, against 77.0% 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
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,941 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.99%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
88.8% on time across 434 flights
These figures cover 2,009 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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 DFW to JFK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 88.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 72.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,404 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 434 | 88.8% | 75 min | 4.84% | A− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 171 | 87.0% | 31 min | 1.17% | A |
| American Airlines | 1,404 | 72.3% | 72 min | 2.64% | C |
Delta Air Lines cancels 4.8% 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.
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 | 84.5% | 88.8% | 4.84% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 454 07:15 |
| 2. DFW → EWRDallas-Fort Worth to Newark | United Airlines | 75.1% | 77.1% | 2.62% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1847 07:00 |
| 3. DFW → JFKDallas-Fort Worth to New York | American Airlines | 70.4% | 72.3% | 2.64% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1766 09:05 |
| 4. DFW → LGADallas-Fort Worth to New York | Delta Air Lines | 70.1% | 73.4% | 4.55% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 461 06:00 |
| 5. DFW → EWRDallas-Fort Worth to Newark | American Airlines | 62.7% | 65.4% | 4.18% | 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 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am638 flights86.5%
- 8am–11am565 flights81.2%
- 11am–2pm490 flights71.5%
- 2pm–5pm209 flights56.0%
- 5pm–8pm107 flights63.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.5% of the time, against 56.0% for the afternoon window. That is 31 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 638 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
June is the worst month at 57.9% on time, 27 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 217 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.6%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 31,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 12%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 31,317 reported delay minutes.
35% 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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 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.
Cancellations run at 2.99%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
8.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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. 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 76.3% on time across 2,014 flights, within half 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 2,009 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 2.99% 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. 1,941 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to JFK questions
How often is DFW to JFK delayed?
Roughly 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 23.0% of the 2,009 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 88.8% on time across 434 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 72.3%, 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 DFW to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 56.0%, 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 June delays on DFW to JFK?
June is the weakest month at 57.9% on time, compared with 84.8% in February. Across the year that is 27 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
- Delta Air Lines on DFW to JFK88.8%
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to JFK87.0%
- American Airlines on DFW to JFK72.3%
- DFW to ORD, a related route67.6%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- DFW to LGA, a related route67.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record87.0%
- American Airlines on-time record72.3%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.