Carrier route record
DLJFK→PBI
Delta Air Lines · New York to West Palm Beach
- Flights
- 667
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 33%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on JFK to PBI lands a B−, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 667 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on JFK to PBI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 634 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.8%
Every carrier on JFK to PBI, 2,050 flights
These figures cover 667 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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
Delta against every carrier on JFK to PBI
Delta flew 667 of the 2,050 flights on JFK to PBI, about 33% of it. Its 80.9% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 80.9% to JetBlue at 71.9%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 667 | 80.9% | 75 min | 4.65% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,383 | 71.9% | 70 min | 4.56% | C− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on JFK to PBI
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.
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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am267 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am67 flights88.1%
- 11am–2pm16 flights—
- 2pm–5pm317 flights73.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.8% of the time, against 73.4% for the afternoon window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 317 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on JFK to PBI through the year
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 72.1%. June is the strongest month at 87.7%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 16 points. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.6%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on JFK to PBI runs when it is late
Delta on JFK to PBI often beats the schedule: 270 of 634 completed flights, 43%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 121 late arrivals split 33 under half an hour, 39 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 49 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early270 flights42.6%
- Within 15 min243 flights38.3%
- 15–29 min late33 flights5.2%
- 30–59 min late39 flights6.2%
- 1–2 hours late27 flights4.3%
- 2+ hours late22 flights3.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 634 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
23 of 102 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. In the other direction, 42 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at PBI.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on JFK to PBI
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 July 2026, 8 hours 50 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 July 2026 | 8 hours 50 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 21 July 2026 | 5 hours 3 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 July 2026 | 4 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 May 2026 | 4 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 January 2026 | 4 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
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 9,050 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 35%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,340 of the 9,050 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,050 reported delay minutes.
35% 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 3,185 minutes out of 9,050, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.65%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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 costs
7.7% 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.
The 1,028 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 67.7% on time across 667 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 667 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on JFK to PBI
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.65% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 634 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to PBI, every carrier
- Delta on PBI to JFK, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to PBI71.9%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Palm Beach International (PBI) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.