Route reliability record
JFK→ATL
New York to Atlanta
- Flights
- 4,272
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 760 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,272 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,456 at 82.2% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 82.2% on time across 2,456 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,162 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.25%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
82.2% on time across 2,456 flights
These figures cover 4,272 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.2% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 68.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,079 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,456 | 82.2% | 83 min | 1.51% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 737 | 70.5% | 74 min | 2.17% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,079 | 68.3% | 71 min | 3.99% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.0% 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.
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 15 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am779 flights81.4%
- 8am–11am857 flights79.4%
- 11am–2pm877 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm751 flights72.8%
- 5pm–8pm524 flights73.7%
- 8pm–5am484 flights66.7%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 81.4% of the time, against 66.7% for the overnight window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 877 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 63.2% on time, against 84.5% 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 402 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.0%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 75,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 28,000 of the 75,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 74,606 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 81.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.25% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.1% 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 760 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 runs 75.3% on time across 4,263 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,272 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.5% on time and December 63.2%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 4,162 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to ATL questions
How often is JFK to ATL delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.3% of the 4,272 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.2% on time across 2,456 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 68.3%, a gap of 14 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 JFK to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 81.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.7%, 15 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 JFK to ATL?
December is the weakest month at 63.2% on time, compared with 84.5% in September. Across the year that is 21 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
- ATL to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record70.5%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record68.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. JFK to ATL and ATL to JFK are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.