Carrier route record
DLDTW→JFK
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to New York
- Flights
- 772
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 63%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DTW to JFK carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.4% 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 772 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on DTW to JFK from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 743 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.37%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.4%
Every carrier on DTW to JFK, 1,217 flights
These figures cover 772 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on DTW to JFK
Delta flew 772 of the 1,217 flights on DTW to JFK, most of the route. Its 79.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 84.6% to Delta at 79.7%.
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 | 445 | 84.6% | 72 min | 6.52% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 772 | 79.7% | 88 min | 3.37% | B− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on DTW to JFK
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 Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am5 flights—
- 8am–11am222 flights91.2%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm314 flights76.3%
- 5pm–8pm59 flights71.4%
- 8pm–5am172 flights73.7%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 314 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DTW to JFK through the year
December is the weak month at 61.9% on time, against 89.8% 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 91 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.3%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on DTW to JFK runs when it is late
Delta on DTW to JFK often beats the schedule: 303 of 743 completed flights, 41%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 151 late arrivals split 51 under half an hour, 40 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 60 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early303 flights40.8%
- Within 15 min289 flights38.9%
- 15–29 min late51 flights6.9%
- 30–59 min late40 flights5.4%
- 1–2 hours late27 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late33 flights4.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 743 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
44 of 167 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. 28 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on DTW to JFK
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 December 2025, 14 hours 10 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 December 2025 | 14 hours 10 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 20 August 2026 | 13 hours 24 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 5 July 2026 | 11 hours 44 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 7 August 2026 | 6 hours 11 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 9 July 2026 | 5 hours 53 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 57% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 12%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
57% 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 7,577 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 13,267 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.37%, 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 costs
8.1% 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 runs 80.2% on time across 770 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 772 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 Delta on DTW to JFK
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.37% 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. 743 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to JFK, every carrier
- Delta on JFK to DTW, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on DTW to JFK84.6%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.