Route reliability record
JFK→SFO
New York to San Francisco
- Flights
- 6,800
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,586 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,800 JFK to SFO flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,501 at 74.6% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to SFO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.8%, against 71.4% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 74.6% on time across 1,501 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,611 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.57%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
74.6% on time across 1,501 flights
These figures cover 6,800 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 SFO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 74.6% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 67.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,231 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,501 | 74.6% | 67 min | 2.86% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,955 | 73.4% | 73 min | 2.86% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,113 | 71.7% | 66 min | 2.43% | C |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,231 | 67.3% | 70 min | 2.20% | C |
American leads Delta by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK to SFO
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.
- American 17907:3079.8% · 365 flights
- American 17721:0060.4% · 362 flights
- Delta 66807:0071.8% · 359 flights
- Delta 66719:2555.7% · 358 flights
- American 1517:0073.7% · 350 flights
- JetBlue 11506:0080.9% · 347 flights
- Delta 67914:5572.7% · 346 flights
- JetBlue 61518:3066.3% · 346 flights
- Alaska 22709:3080.2% · 344 flights
- American 7606:0088.7% · 336 flights
- Alaska 4111:3064.4% · 302 flights
- Delta 36311:3068.3% · 262 flights
- JetBlue 1508:0084.0% · 258 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to San Francisco
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. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → SFONewark to San Francisco | Alaska Airlines | 76.3% | 77.3% | 1.23% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. JFK → SFONew York to San Francisco | American Airlines | 72.5% | 74.6% | 2.86% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 76 06:00 |
| 3. JFK → SFONew York to San Francisco | JetBlue Airways | 71.3% | 73.4% | 2.86% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 15 08:00 |
| 4. JFK → SFONew York to San Francisco | Alaska Airlines | 70.0% | 71.7% | 2.43% | 11am–2pm, Sat | AS 227 09:30 |
| 5. JFK → SFONew York to San Francisco | Delta Air Lines | 65.8% | 67.3% | 2.20% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 679 14:55 |
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 20 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,079 flights82.0%
- 8am–11am1,476 flights76.4%
- 11am–2pm969 flights76.0%
- 2pm–5pm936 flights69.5%
- 5pm–8pm1,238 flights61.9%
- 8pm–5am1,102 flights62.2%
Scale runs 55% to 85%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.9% on time, against 82.0% 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 1,476 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK to SFO 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 SFO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 82.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.9%, a wide gap of 20.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am82.0%
- 8–11am76.4%
- 11am–2pm76.0%
- 2–5pm69.5%
- 5–8pm61.9%
- 8pm–5am62.2%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
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. July was the busiest month here, with 622 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 65.6%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 42% of the 131,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 29%Carrier
- 26%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 55,000 minutes out of 131,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 131,154 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.57%, against 1.89% 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
10.7% 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 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 78.0% on time across 6,798 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,800 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 SFO after this flight
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. 6,611 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to SFO questions
How often is JFK to SFO delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.6% of the 6,800 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 SFO?
American Airlines leads at 74.6% on time across 1,501 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 67.3%, a gap of 7 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 82.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.9%, 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 JFK to SFO74.6%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to SFO73.4%
- Alaska Airlines on JFK to SFO71.7%
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to SFO67.3%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- JFK to BOS, a related route72.1%
- American Airlines on-time record74.6%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record73.4%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record71.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.
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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.