Route reliability record
JFK→DEN
New York to Denver
- Flights
- 1,531
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,626 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 1,531 JFK to DEN flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 937 at 73.7% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to DEN: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.9%, against 71.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 59 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,477 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.40%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
73.7% on time across 937 flights
These figures cover 1,531 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 DEN
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 | 937 | 73.7% | 69 min | 2.56% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 545 | 67.9% | 63 min | 5.14% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 49 | 67.3% | 124 min | 0.00% | C+ |
JetBlue Airways cancels 5.1% 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 DEN
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 Denver
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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → DENNewark to Denver | United Airlines | 76.5% | 77.6% | 1.46% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2455 10:00 |
| 2. LGA → DENNew York to Denver | United Airlines | 76.0% | 77.6% | 2.08% | 8am–11am, Sat | UA 2200 12:15 |
| 3. JFK → DENNew York to Denver | Delta Air Lines | 71.8% | 73.7% | 2.56% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 532 08:30 |
| 4. LGA → DENNew York to Denver | Delta Air Lines | 67.5% | 70.7% | 4.55% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 751 07:30 |
| 5. JFK → DENNew York to Denver | JetBlue Airways | 64.4% | 67.9% | 5.14% | 8am–11am, Wed | B6 97 20:15 |
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 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am25 flights—
- 8am–11am609 flights82.1%
- 11am–2pm39 flights82.1%
- 2pm–5pm189 flights62.7%
- 5pm–8pm170 flights63.5%
- 8pm–5am499 flights64.2%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.1% of the time, against 62.7% for the afternoon window. That is 19 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 609 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK to DEN 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 DEN, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 82.1% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 62.7%, a wide gap of 19.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am82.1%
- 11am–2pm82.1%
- 2–5pm62.7%
- 5–8pm63.5%
- 8pm–5am64.2%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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 58.3% on time, 30 points below September, the best at 88.1%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 157 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.8%, a spread of 16 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 29,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 36%National Airspace System
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 10,000 minutes out of 29,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 29,096 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.40%, 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
10.7% 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.
At 1,626 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.6% on time across 1,531 flights, 9 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,531 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 DEN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.40% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,477 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to DEN questions
How often is JFK to DEN delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.6% of the 1,531 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to DEN?
Delta Air Lines leads at 73.7% on time across 937 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 67.9%, 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 DEN?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 62.7%, 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 DEN?
August is the weakest month at 58.3% on time, compared with 88.1% in September. Across the year that is 30 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
- DEN to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to DEN73.7%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to DEN67.9%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record73.7%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record67.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record67.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. JFK to DEN and DEN 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.