Route reliability record
JFK→SFO
New York to San Francisco
- Flights
- 6,730
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,586 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,730 flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,448 at 77.2% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 77.2% on time across 1,448 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,588 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
77.2% on time across 1,448 flights
These figures cover 6,730 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% 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 SFO
The four carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,448 | 77.2% | 66 min | 2.56% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,945 | 76.7% | 75 min | 2.01% | B |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,108 | 71.4% | 70 min | 1.81% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,229 | 71.3% | 70 min | 1.48% | C |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 77.2%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 20 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,069 flights83.8%
- 8am–11am1,358 flights80.4%
- 11am–2pm988 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm852 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,188 flights65.7%
- 8pm–5am1,275 flights64.2%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.2% on time, against 83.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,358 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
June is the worst month at 60.9% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 85.8%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 611 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 69.7%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 42% of the 120,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 27%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% 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 51,000 minutes out of 120,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 120,223 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.92% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 2,586 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.1% on time across 6,729 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,730 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. September runs 85.8% on time and June 60.9%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 6,588 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to SFO questions
How often is JFK to SFO delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.9% of the 6,730 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 SFO?
American Airlines leads at 77.2% on time across 1,448 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 71.3%, a gap of 6 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 SFO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.2%, 20 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 June delays on JFK to SFO?
June is the weakest month at 60.9% on time, compared with 85.8% in September. Across the year that is 25 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
- SFO to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- American Airlines on-time record77.2%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record76.7%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record71.4%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. JFK to SFO and SFO 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.