Route reliability record
JFK→AUS
New York to Austin
- Flights
- 2,227
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,521 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% 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 2,227 JFK to AUS flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,283 at 83.2% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to AUS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.7%, against 80.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,142 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.46%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.2% on time across 1,283 flights
These figures cover 2,227 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to AUS
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,283 | 83.2% | 66 min | 3.20% | B− |
| American Airlines | 944 | 77.5% | 127 min | 3.81% | B− |
American Airlines cancels 3.8% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK to AUS
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to Austin
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. JFK → AUSNew York to Austin | Delta Air Lines | 80.5% | 83.2% | 3.20% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 2323 12:59 |
| 2. EWR → AUSNewark to Austin | United Airlines | 77.8% | 79.8% | 2.48% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1155 12:20 |
| 3. JFK → AUSNew York to Austin | American Airlines | 74.5% | 77.5% | 3.81% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2772 17:53 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 16 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am546 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am71 flights78.9%
- 11am–2pm783 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm110 flights88.1%
- 5pm–8pm655 flights73.9%
- 8pm–5am62 flights75.0%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.3% of the time, against 73.9% for the evening window. That is 16 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 783 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK to AUS by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On JFK to AUS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.9%, a wide gap of 16.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.3%
- 8–11am78.9%
- 11am–2pm79.5%
- 2–5pm88.1%
- 5–8pm73.9%
- 8pm–5am75.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
August is the worst month at 72.5% on time, 16 points below April, the best at 88.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 212 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.9%, a spread of 9 points.
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 39,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 39,422 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 39,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.46%, 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 actually costs
8.8% 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.
At 1,521 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 79.6% on time across 2,227 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 2,227 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in AUS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.46% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 2,142 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to AUS questions
How often is JFK to AUS delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.2% of the 2,227 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to AUS?
Delta Air Lines leads at 83.2% on time across 1,283 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 77.5%, a gap of 6 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 AUS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.9%, 16 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 August delays on JFK to AUS?
August is the weakest month at 72.5% on time, compared with 88.9% in April. Across the year that is 16 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
- AUS to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to AUS83.2%
- American Airlines on JFK to AUS77.5%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- DEN to AUS, a related route76.2%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.2%
- American Airlines on-time record77.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to AUS and AUS to JFK are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.