Route reliability record
JFK→CHS
New York to Charleston
- Flights
- 787
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 636 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 787 JFK to CHS flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly JFK to CHS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.6%, against 75.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
75.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 749 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.83%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
JetBlue
74.1% on time across 634 flights
These figures cover 787 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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 CHS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 151 | 80.3% | 64 min | 9.27% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 634 | 74.1% | 73 min | 3.79% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK to CHS
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to Charleston
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → CHSNewark to Charleston | United Airlines | 80.5% | 81.7% | 1.50% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. JFK → CHSNew York to Charleston | JetBlue Airways | 71.3% | 74.1% | 3.79% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1273 08:00 |
| 3. LGA → CHSNew York to Charleston | Republic Airways | 71.2% | 75.4% | 5.59% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. LGA → CHSNew York to Charleston | Delta Air Lines | 65.8% | 68.2% | 3.47% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
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 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–8am79 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am304 flights79.5%
- 11am–2pm59 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm192 flights69.0%
- 5pm–8pm89 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am64 flights67.9%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.0% of the time, against 66.7% for the evening 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 304 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 39 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.
July is the worst month at 58.9% on time, 39 points below September, the best at 97.9%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 84 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 69.3%. 13 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 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
42% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 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 13,280 reported delay minutes.
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 4,647 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 4.83%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.3% 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 636 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 73.8% on time across 785 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 787 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CHS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.83% 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. 749 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to CHS questions
How often is JFK to CHS delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.7% of the 787 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is JFK to CHS compared with the rest of the country?
75.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on JFK to CHS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.7%, 17 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 July delays on JFK to CHS?
July is the weakest month at 58.9% on time, compared with 97.9% in September. Across the year that is 39 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
- CHS to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on JFK to CHS80.3%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to CHS74.1%
- JFK to LAX, a related route77.6%
- ATL to CHS, a related route83.7%
- JFK to SFO, a related route74.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.3%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record74.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to CHS and CHS 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.