Carrier route record

B6EWR→TPA

JetBlue Airways · Newark to Tampa

Flights: 286
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 11%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with JetBlue Airways.

JetBlue on EWR to TPA sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 286 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate JetBlue on EWR to TPA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 274 completed flights

Avg delay

80 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.50%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.8%

Every carrier on EWR to TPA, 2,656 flights

These figures cover 286 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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

JetBlue against every carrier on EWR to TPA

JetBlue flew 286 of the 2,656 flights on EWR to TPA, about 11% of it. Its 75.5% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 81.4% to JetBlue at 75.5%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on EWR to TPA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	2,370	81.4%	69 min	2.03%	B
JetBlue Airways (this page)thin sample	286	75.5%	80 min	3.50%	B−

Departure window

When JetBlue runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am1 flights—
8am–11am94 flights84.8%
11am–2pm3 flights—
2pm–5pm167 flights68.2%
5pm–8pm20 flights—
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.8% of the time, against 68.2% for the afternoon window. That is 17 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 167 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

JetBlue on EWR to TPA through the year

Jul–Sep 2025148 flights73.2%
Oct–Dec 202578 flights68.8%
Apr–Jun 202660 flights89.8%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 75.5% on time across 286 flights.

JetBlue on EWR to TPA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 89.8% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 68.8%, a swing of 21 points on roughly 95 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 87.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 65.0%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why JetBlue runs late on this route

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 5,364 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
41%
Carrier
27%
National Airspace System
26%
Extreme weather
6%

41% 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 5,364 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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. The split is drawn from 5,364 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.8% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.50%, 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 997 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 65.5% on time across 287 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 286 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 EWR to TPA

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.50% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 274 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures