Carrier route record
B6DTW→JFK
JetBlue Airways · Detroit to New York
- Flights
- 445
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 36%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with JetBlue Airways.
JetBlue on DTW to JFK earns an A−. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 445 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, JetBlue's DTW to JFK record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 79 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 429 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
83.1%
Every carrier on DTW to JFK, 1,223 flights
These figures cover 445 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
JetBlue against every carrier on DTW to JFK
JetBlue flew 445 of the 1,223 flights on DTW to JFK, about 36% of it. Its 85.5% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 83.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 85.5% to Delta at 81.7%.
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 (this page) | 445 | 85.5% | 79 min | 3.60% | A− |
| Delta Air Lines | 778 | 81.7% | 81 min | 2.44% | B |
Departure window
When JetBlue runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 445 flights.
- 5am–8am365 flights86.3%
- 8am–11am10 flights—
- 11am–2pm45 flights84.4%
- 2pm–5pm25 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5am–8am window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The full set of windows spans 2 points.
Across the year
JetBlue on DTW to JFK through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 100.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 90.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.7%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why JetBlue runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 59% of the 4,924 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.
- 59%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 13%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, 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 2,928 of the 4,924 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,924 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.60%, against 1.81% 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
5.4% 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 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. 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.2% on time across 445 flights, 18 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 18 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 445 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 JetBlue on DTW to JFK
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.60% 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. 429 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to JFK, every carrier
- JetBlue on JFK to DTW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to JFK81.7%
- JetBlue Airways network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.