Carrier route record

DLJFK→LAS

Delta Air Lines · New York to Las Vegas

Flights: 1,676
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 45%
Carriers: 4

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

Delta on JFK to LAS lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,676 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 460 at 84.0% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on JFK to LAS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

78.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,635 completed flights

Avg delay

53 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.33%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.9%

Every carrier on JFK to LAS, 3,714 flights

These figures cover 1,676 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 LAS

Delta flew 1,676 of the 3,714 flights on JFK to LAS, about 45% of it. Its 78.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 84.0% to Frontier at 65.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 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.

On-time performance by carrier on JFK to LAS
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 (this page)	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%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on JFK to LAS

DL 80616:4579.0% · 349 flights

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 17 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am363 flights85.9%
8am–11am11 flights—
11am–2pm362 flights84.3%
2pm–5pm252 flights76.5%
5pm–8pm462 flights74.2%
8pm–5am226 flights68.8%

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 85.9% of the time, against 68.8% for the overnight 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 462 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on JFK to LAS through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.August best, July worst

July is the worst month at 66.2% on time, 23 points below August, the best at 89.3%. 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 151 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.1%. 6 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 19,000 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
42%
Carrier
32%
Late-arriving aircraft
21%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

42% 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 7,781 minutes out of 19,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 18,665 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 2.33% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.7% 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 roughly 55 minutes, 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.2% on time across 1,676 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 1,676 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 LAS

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 89.3% on time and July 66.2%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,635 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