Carrier route record

DLJFK→AUS

Delta Air Lines · New York to Austin

Flights: 1,278
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 59%
Carriers: 2

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

Delta on JFK to AUS lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,278 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's JFK to AUS record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 61 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,248 completed flights

Avg delay

62 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.11%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

82.2%

Every carrier on JFK to AUS, 2,160 flights

These figures cover 1,278 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 15 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

Delta against every carrier on JFK to AUS

Delta flew 1,278 of the 2,160 flights on JFK to AUS, most of the route. Its 83.7% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 82.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.7% to American at 80.0%.

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 JFK to AUS
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines (this page)	1,278	83.7%	62 min	2.11%	B
American Airlines	882	80.0%	126 min	3.29%	B−

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on JFK to AUS

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 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–8am356 flights89.6%
8am–11am2 flights—
11am–2pm392 flights84.4%
2pm–5pm164 flights85.3%
5pm–8pm364 flights76.3%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.6% of the time, against 76.3% for the evening window. That is 13 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 392 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on JFK to AUS through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, December worst

December is the weak month at 75.5% on time, against 93.3% in April. 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 120 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.2%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta 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 13,000 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
36%
Carrier
35%
Late-arriving aircraft
24%
Extreme weather
5%

The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 4,433 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,676 reported delay minutes.

36% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 4,554 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 2.11% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.0% 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 about an hour, 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 83.3% on time across 1,278 flights, within half 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 1,278 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 Delta on JFK to AUS

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 93.3% on time and December 75.5%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,248 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