Carrier route record
B6DTW→JFK
JetBlue Airways · Detroit to New York
- Flights
- 445
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 37%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with JetBlue Airways.
JetBlue on DTW to JFK earns a B−. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 445 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, JetBlue's DTW to JFK record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 73 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 416 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.4%
Every carrier on DTW to JFK, 1,217 flights
These figures cover 445 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
JetBlue against every carrier on DTW to JFK
JetBlue flew 445 of the 1,217 flights on DTW to JFK, about 37% of it. Its 84.6% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 81.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first 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 (this page) | 445 | 84.6% | 72 min | 6.52% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 772 | 79.7% | 88 min | 3.37% | B− |
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 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 flights85.2%
- 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 85.2% on time. The full set of windows spans about a point.
Across the year
JetBlue on DTW to JFK through the year
- Jul–Sep 202550 flights92.0%
- Oct–Dec 2025152 flights79.7%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights75.9%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights95.6%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights85.7%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 84.6% on time across 445 flights.
JetBlue on DTW to JFK did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 95.6% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 75.9%, a swing of 20 points on roughly 89 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 90.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.0%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late JetBlue on DTW to JFK runs when it is late
JetBlue on DTW to JFK often beats the schedule: 164 of 416 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 64 late arrivals split 22 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 27 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early164 flights39.4%
- Within 15 min188 flights45.2%
- 15–29 min late22 flights5.3%
- 30–59 min late15 flights3.6%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late12 flights2.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 416 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 36 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 4 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 32 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at JFK.
The worst days
Worst days for JetBlue on DTW to JFK
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 August 2026, 4 hours 30 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 August 2026 | 4 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 4 hours 23 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 March 2026 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 31 December 2025 | 3 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 August 2026 | 3 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why JetBlue runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 55% of the 4,623 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,565 of the 4,623 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,623 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 6.52%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
6.5% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.4% on time across 445 flights, 17 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 17 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 6.52% 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. 416 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 JFK79.7%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.