Route reliability record
DTW→JFK
Detroit to New York
- Flights
- 1,217
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 509 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,217 DTW to JFK flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 445 at 84.6% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to JFK: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.3%, against 81.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,159 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
84.6% on time across 445 flights
These figures cover 1,217 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to JFK
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 445 | 84.6% | 72 min | 6.52% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 772 | 79.7% | 88 min | 3.37% | B− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 6.5% 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 DTW 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 Detroit 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. DTW → JFKDetroit to New York | JetBlue Airways | 79.1% | 84.6% | 6.52% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 2. DTW → JFKDetroit to New York | Delta Air Lines | 77.0% | 79.7% | 3.37% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 2934 16:18 |
| 3. DTW → EWRDetroit to Newark | Republic Airways | 76.5% | 81.8% | 6.43% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 4. DTW → LGADetroit to New York | Delta Air Lines | 73.3% | 76.4% | 4.04% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 1487 07:00 |
| 5. DTW → EWRDetroit to Newark | Delta Air Lines | 72.5% | 75.4% | 3.91% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 2566 07:00 |
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 20 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am370 flights85.1%
- 8am–11am232 flights91.2%
- 11am–2pm45 flights84.4%
- 2pm–5pm339 flights76.1%
- 5pm–8pm59 flights71.4%
- 8pm–5am172 flights73.7%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.2% of the time, against 71.4% for the evening window. That is 20 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 370 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW 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 DTW to JFK, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.4%, a wide gap of 19.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am85.1%
- 8–11am91.2%
- 11am–2pm84.4%
- 2–5pm76.1%
- 5–8pm71.4%
- 8pm–5am73.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
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.
December is the weak month at 62.0% on time, against 90.6% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 153 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.6%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 50% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%National Airspace System
- 31%Carrier
- 13%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 8,981 minutes out of 18,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 17,890 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.52%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
7.5% 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.
The 509 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.6% on time across 1,215 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,217 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 4.52% 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. 1,159 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to JFK questions
How often is DTW 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 18.6% of the 1,217 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to JFK?
JetBlue Airways leads at 84.6% on time across 445 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 79.7%, a gap of 5 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 DTW to JFK?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.4%, 20 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 December delays on DTW to JFK?
December is the weakest month at 62.0% on time, compared with 90.6% in September. 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 DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on DTW to JFK84.6%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to JFK79.7%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record84.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. DTW to JFK and JFK to DTW 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.