Route reliability record

JFK→PHX

New York to Phoenix

Flights: 2,972
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 2,153 mi
Carriers: 3

This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,972 flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,524 at 82.0% on time.

American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 82.0% on time across 1,524 flights.

On time

77.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,888 completed flights

Avg delay

75 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.66%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

American

82.0% on time across 1,524 flights

These figures cover 2,972 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on JFK to PHX

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 82.0% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 73.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 531 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on JFK to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines	1,524	82.0%	93 min	2.23%	B
Delta Air Lines	917	73.9%	61 min	3.27%	C−
JetBlue Airways	531	73.0%	64 min	2.82%	C

Delta Air Lines cancels 3.3% 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.

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

5am–8am442 flights86.4%
8am–11am654 flights81.7%
11am–2pm408 flights82.9%
2pm–5pm191 flights78.6%
5pm–8pm1,064 flights72.6%
8pm–5am213 flights64.9%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.9% on time, against 86.4% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,064 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 22 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, December worst

December is the weak month at 63.6% on time, against 85.9% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 289 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.6%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 48,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
37%
Carrier
33%
National Airspace System
26%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 47,947 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 86.4% on time here.

Cancellations run at 2.66%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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

8.0% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,153 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 79.7% on time across 2,970 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 2,972 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 this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 85.9% on time and December 63.6%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,888 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

JFK to PHX questions

How often is JFK to PHX delayed?

Roughly one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.1% of the 2,972 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on JFK to PHX?

American Airlines leads at 82.0% on time across 1,524 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 73.0%, a gap of 9 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 PHX?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.9%, 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 December delays on JFK to PHX?

December is the weakest month at 63.6% on time, compared with 85.9% in April. Across the year that is 22 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. JFK to PHX and PHX to JFK are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures