Route reliability record
JFK→PIT
New York to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 1,764
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 340 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,764 JFK to PIT flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,310 at 76.3% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to PIT: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 78.7%, against 73.7% 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
73.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,652 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.12%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
76.3% on time across 1,310 flights
These figures cover 1,764 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% 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 PIT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.3% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 66.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 454 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,310 | 76.3% | 83 min | 6.18% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 454 | 66.2% | 75 min | 5.95% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 6.2% 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 PIT
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 Pittsburgh
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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → PITNewark to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 77.0% | 81.4% | 5.44% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | YX 3403 19:29 |
| 2. LGA → PITNew York to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 74.2% | 78.6% | 5.66% | 5am–8am, Fri (route) | YX 4579 13:10 |
| 3. JFK → PITNew York to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 71.6% | 76.3% | 6.18% | 11am–2pm, Sat | YX 4611 19:40 |
| 4. JFK → PITNew York to Pittsburgh | JetBlue Airways | 62.3% | 66.2% | 5.95% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | B6 1195 22:00 |
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 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am2 flights—
- 8am–11am10 flights—
- 11am–2pm217 flights82.5%
- 2pm–5pm468 flights75.1%
- 5pm–8pm630 flights75.1%
- 8pm–5am437 flights65.0%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 82.5% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 65.0%. 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 630 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK to PIT 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 PIT, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 82.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.0%, a wide gap of 17.5 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm82.5%
- 2–5pm75.1%
- 5–8pm75.1%
- 8pm–5am65.0%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 58.9% on time, 26 points below May, the best at 84.8%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 183 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.0%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 34,873 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 6.12%, 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
11.6% 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 340 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 85.9% on time across 1,764 flights, 12 points above 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,764 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 PIT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.12% 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. 1,652 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to PIT questions
How often is JFK to PIT 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 26.3% of the 1,764 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 PIT?
Republic Airways leads at 76.3% on time across 1,310 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 66.2%, a gap of 10 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 PIT?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 82.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.0%, 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 PIT?
August is the weakest month at 58.9% on time, compared with 84.8% in May. Across the year that is 26 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
- PIT to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on JFK to PIT76.3%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to PIT66.2%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- ORD to PIT, a related route73.6%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.3%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record66.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. JFK to PIT and PIT 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.