Route reliability record
JFK→LAS
New York to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 3,714
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,248 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 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 3,714 flights, of which American Airlines flew 460 at 84.0% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 84.0% on time across 460 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,625 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.18%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
84.0% on time across 460 flights
These figures cover 3,714 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to LAS
The three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 460 | 84.0% | 108 min | 1.74% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,375 | 82.4% | 65 min | 2.25% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,676 | 78.5% | 53 min | 2.33% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 203 | 65.0% | 65 min | 1.48% | C |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 84.0%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am996 flights85.5%
- 8am–11am596 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm513 flights85.9%
- 2pm–5pm428 flights77.6%
- 5pm–8pm755 flights72.7%
- 8pm–5am426 flights69.7%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 85.9% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 69.7%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 996 flights scheduled in it.
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.
July is the worst month at 70.8% on time, 16 points below August, the best at 87.2%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 345 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.9%. 7 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 46,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Carrier
- 31%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 16,000 of the 46,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 46,326 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.18% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.0% 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,248 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 81.3% on time across 3,710 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 3,714 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 87.2% on time and July 70.8%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,625 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to LAS questions
How often is JFK to LAS delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.1% of the 3,714 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to LAS?
American Airlines leads at 84.0% on time across 460 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 78.5%, 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 LAS?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 85.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 69.7%, 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 July delays on JFK to LAS?
July is the weakest month at 70.8% on time, compared with 87.2% in August. 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
- LAS to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- American Airlines on-time record84.0%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record82.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.5%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. JFK to LAS and LAS to JFK are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.