Route reliability record
JFK→RSW
New York to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 1,281
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,074 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.9% 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 B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,281 JFK to RSW flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 472 at 85.7% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to RSW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.1%, against 77.8% 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
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,211 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.92%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
85.7% on time across 472 flights
These figures cover 1,281 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to RSW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 85.7% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 73.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 809 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 472 | 85.7% | 71 min | 5.08% | A− |
| JetBlue Airways | 809 | 73.2% | 75 min | 4.82% | C− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 5.1% 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 RSW
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 Fort Myers
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. JFK → RSWNew York to Fort Myers | Delta Air Lines | 81.3% | 85.7% | 5.08% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 2320 07:00 |
| 2. EWR → RSWNewark to Fort Myers | United Airlines | 76.9% | 78.5% | 2.03% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. LGA → RSWNew York to Fort Myers | Delta Air Lines | 70.8% | 74.4% | 4.78% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 379 07:15 |
| 4. JFK → RSWNew York to Fort Myers | JetBlue Airways | 69.7% | 73.2% | 4.82% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1529 06:30 |
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 32 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am447 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am253 flights78.9%
- 11am–2pm60 flights72.4%
- 2pm–5pm319 flights72.7%
- 5pm–8pm48 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am154 flights57.6%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.6% on time, against 89.4% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 447 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK to RSW 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 RSW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 57.6%, a wide gap of 31.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am78.9%
- 11am–2pm72.4%
- 2–5pm72.7%
- 5–8pm68.9%
- 8pm–5am57.6%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 37 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 55.8% on time, 37 points below September, the best at 93.1%. 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. February was the busiest month here, with 137 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.9%, a spread of 12 points.
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 20,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 19,860 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 89.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.92%, 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 actually costs
9.4% 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 1,074 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 runs 77.3% on time across 1,279 flights, within half a point 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 1,281 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 RSW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.92% 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. 1,211 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to RSW questions
How often is JFK to RSW delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.2% of the 1,281 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 RSW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 85.7% on time across 472 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 73.2%, a gap of 13 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 RSW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 57.6%, 32 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 RSW?
August is the weakest month at 55.8% on time, compared with 93.1% in September. Across the year that is 37 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
- RSW to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to RSW85.7%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to RSW73.2%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- ORD to RSW, a related route75.6%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.7%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record73.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to RSW and RSW to JFK are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed JFK to RSW’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.