Route reliability record
JFK→CHS
New York to Charleston
- Flights
- 791
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 636 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 791 JFK to CHS flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly JFK to CHS: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.3%, against 74.3% 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
74.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 739 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.45%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
72.8% on time across 638 flights
These figures cover 791 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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 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 | 638 | 72.8% | 70 min | 5.80% | 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 | 77.5% | 79.1% | 2.06% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2355 06:45 |
| 2. LGA → CHSNew York to Charleston | Republic Airways | 69.3% | 73.8% | 6.15% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. JFK → CHSNew York to Charleston | JetBlue Airways | 68.6% | 72.8% | 5.80% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1273 08:10 |
| 4. LGA → CHSNew York to Charleston | Delta Air Lines | 63.4% | 66.6% | 4.81% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am85 flights82.5%
- 8am–11am298 flights74.3%
- 11am–2pm59 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm143 flights77.9%
- 5pm–8pm142 flights64.0%
- 8pm–5am64 flights67.9%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.0% on time, against 82.8% for the 11am–2pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 298 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK to CHS 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 CHS, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 82.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.0%, a wide gap of 18.8 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am82.5%
- 8–11am74.3%
- 11am–2pm82.8%
- 2–5pm77.9%
- 5–8pm64.0%
- 8pm–5am67.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 40 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 57.7% on time, 40 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 82.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.3%, a spread of 15 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 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 13,141 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,761 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 6.45%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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.
The return leg runs 73.5% on time across 789 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 791 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 6.45% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 739 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 25.7% of the 791 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
74.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on JFK to CHS?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 82.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.0%, 19 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 CHS?
August is the weakest month at 57.7% on time, compared with 97.9% in September. Across the year that is 40 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
- Charleston International (CHS) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on JFK to CHS80.3%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to CHS72.8%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- ATL to CHS, a related route82.3%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.3%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record72.8%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.