Route reliability record
JFK→ORF
New York to Norfolk
- Flights
- 731
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 290 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 731 JFK to ORF flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly JFK to ORF: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 89.7%, against 82.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 51 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 687 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
82.4% on time across 731 flights
These figures cover 731 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to ORF
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 731 | 82.4% | 72 min | 6.02% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK to ORF
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.
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 Norfolk
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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. JFK → ORFNew York to Norfolk | Republic Airways | 77.4% | 82.4% | 6.02% | 11am–2pm, Tue | YX 4359 15:30 |
| 2. EWR → ORFNewark to Norfolk | Republic Airways | 77.4% | 83.4% | 7.20% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. LGA → ORFNew York to Norfolk | Republic Airways | 69.0% | 74.0% | 6.82% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4589 21:29 |
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 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am49 flights87.8%
- 11am–2pm213 flights89.3%
- 2pm–5pm449 flights79.2%
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am19 flights—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 89.3% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 79.2%. 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 449 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK to ORF 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 ORF, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 89.3% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 79.2%, a wide gap of 10.1 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am87.8%
- 11am–2pm89.3%
- 2–5pm79.2%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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.
December is the weak month at 65.8% on time, against 96.6% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. December was the busiest month here, with 75 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 77.7%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 8,649 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,649 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 to one. The split is drawn from 8,649 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 6.02%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in fifteen 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
6.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 290 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.2% on time across 731 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 731 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ORF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.02% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 687 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to ORF questions
How often is JFK to ORF delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.6% of the 731 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is JFK to ORF compared with the rest of the country?
82.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on JFK to ORF?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 79.2%, 10 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 December delays on JFK to ORF?
December is the weakest month at 65.8% on time, compared with 96.6% in April. Across the year that is 31 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
- ORF to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- ATL to ORF, a related route78.7%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to ORF and ORF 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.