Route reliability record
JFK→MIA
New York to Miami
- Flights
- 4,526
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,089 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 4,526 JFK to MIA flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,693 at 76.9% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to MIA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.6%, against 76.8% 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
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,376 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.12%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
76.9% on time across 2,693 flights
These figures cover 4,526 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 MIA
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 212 | 83.1% | 102 min | 2.36% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,693 | 76.9% | 113 min | 2.97% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,621 | 75.8% | 71 min | 3.45% | B− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 3.5% 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 MIA
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 Miami
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 → MIANewark to Miami | American Airlines | 78.6% | 81.3% | 3.29% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1196 05:40 |
| 2. EWR → FLLNewark to Fort Lauderdale | United Airlines | 76.2% | 78.2% | 2.53% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1364 07:00 |
| 3. EWR → MIANewark to Miami | United Airlines | 75.2% | 77.1% | 2.50% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2295 11:31 |
| 4. JFK → MIANew York to Miami | American Airlines | 74.6% | 76.9% | 2.97% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2017 07:30 |
| 5. JFK → MIANew York to Miami | Delta Air Lines | 73.2% | 75.8% | 3.45% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1528 07:05 |
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 22 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,208 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am227 flights79.0%
- 11am–2pm1,013 flights77.2%
- 2pm–5pm797 flights71.6%
- 5pm–8pm836 flights70.2%
- 8pm–5am445 flights65.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.1% of the time, against 65.9% for the overnight window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,208 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK to MIA 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 MIA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.9%, a wide gap of 22.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.1%
- 8–11am79.0%
- 11am–2pm77.2%
- 2–5pm71.6%
- 5–8pm70.2%
- 8pm–5am65.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 61.0% on time, 27 points below April, the best at 87.6%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 406 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.3%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 98,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 98,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 98,405 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 88.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.12%, 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
10.4% 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 1,089 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.6% on time across 4,526 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,526 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 MIA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.12% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 4,376 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to MIA questions
How often is JFK to MIA 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 23.2% of the 4,526 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to MIA?
American Airlines leads at 76.9% on time across 2,693 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 75.8%, a gap of about a point. 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 MIA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.9%, 22 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 MIA?
July is the weakest month at 61.0% on time, compared with 87.6% in April. Across the year that is 27 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
- MIA to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on JFK to MIA83.1%
- American Airlines on JFK to MIA76.9%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to MIA75.8%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- ATL to MIA, a related route71.2%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record83.1%
- American Airlines on-time record76.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to MIA and MIA 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.