Route reliability record
JFK→LAX
New York to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 10,285
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,475 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 10,285 JFK to LAX flights, of which American Airlines flew 3,298 at 78.6% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to LAX: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.7%, against 75.4% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.6% on time across 3,298 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 9,985 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.78%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.6% on time across 3,298 flights
These figures cover 10,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to LAX
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 78.6% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 72.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,480 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 3,298 | 78.6% | 96 min | 2.61% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,366 | 75.3% | 67 min | 2.55% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 3,480 | 72.5% | 73 min | 3.19% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 141 | 70.8% | 78 min | 2.13% | C |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.2% 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 LAX
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.
- Delta 73815:4072.7% · 365 flights
- American 17106:0088.1% · 363 flights
- Delta 77309:0078.6% · 363 flights
- American 11720:0069.1% · 363 flights
- American 25509:3078.3% · 362 flights
- American 34115:3076.4% · 362 flights
- American 30021:0069.8% · 361 flights
- American 30217:2974.6% · 361 flights
- American 311:0084.9% · 358 flights
- American 30616:3079.7% · 356 flights
- Delta 77117:0074.2% · 350 flights
- American 107:0085.7% · 349 flights
- JetBlue 22307:3079.5% · 348 flights
- Delta 71308:3574.6% · 345 flights
- Delta 76711:0084.4% · 341 flights
- JetBlue 42313:0069.6% · 341 flights
- Delta 70719:4570.9% · 339 flights
- Delta 74713:3077.6% · 338 flights
- Delta 74207:0075.5% · 329 flights
- JetBlue 52309:2081.3% · 317 flights
- JetBlue 12306:0086.9% · 309 flights
- JetBlue 32311:0075.3% · 302 flights
- Delta 35318:0070.5% · 280 flights
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 Los Angeles
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. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → SNANewark to Santa Ana | United Airlines | 83.0% | 84.7% | 2.02% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. JFK → LAXNew York to Los Angeles | American Airlines | 76.5% | 78.6% | 2.61% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 171 06:00 |
| 3. JFK → LAXNew York to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 73.4% | 75.3% | 2.55% | 11am–2pm, Tue | DL 767 11:00 |
| 4. EWR → LAXNewark to Los Angeles | Alaska Airlines | 70.2% | 72.1% | 2.65% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | AS 287 19:29 |
| 5. JFK → LAXNew York to Los Angeles | JetBlue Airways | 70.2% | 72.5% | 3.19% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 123 06:00 |
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 18 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,705 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am1,788 flights77.9%
- 11am–2pm1,611 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm1,844 flights74.2%
- 5pm–8pm1,967 flights69.6%
- 8pm–5am1,370 flights65.8%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.0% of the time, against 65.8% for the overnight window. That is 18 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 1,967 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK to LAX 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 LAX, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.8%, a wide gap of 18.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.0%
- 8–11am77.9%
- 11am–2pm79.8%
- 2–5pm74.2%
- 5–8pm69.6%
- 8pm–5am65.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 63.9% on time, 23 points below March, the best at 87.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 919 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.3%, a spread of 11 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 191,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 69,000 of the 191,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 190,507 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.78%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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
9.5% 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 2,475 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 77.5% on time across 10,289 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.
The sample behind these figures is 10,285 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 LAX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 87.0% on time and August 63.9%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 9,985 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to LAX questions
How often is JFK to LAX 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 24.6% of the 10,285 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 LAX?
American Airlines leads at 78.6% on time across 3,298 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 72.5%, 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 LAX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.8%, 18 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 LAX?
August is the weakest month at 63.9% on time, compared with 87.0% in March. Across the year that is 23 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
- LAX to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- American Airlines on JFK to LAX78.6%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to LAX75.3%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to LAX72.5%
- Frontier Airlines on JFK to LAX70.8%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- JFK to BOS, a related route72.1%
- American Airlines on-time record78.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.3%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record72.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to LAX and LAX to JFK are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed JFK to LAX’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.