Route reliability record
JFK→SFO
New York to San Francisco
- Flights
- 6,707
- Period
- June 2025 to May 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,707 flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 1,946 at 77.8% on time.
JetBlue Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 77.8% on time across 1,946 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,564 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.95%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
JetBlue
77.8% on time across 1,946 flights
These figures cover 6,707 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. JetBlue Airways arrives on time 77.8% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 70.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,110 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 1,946 | 77.8% | 79 min | 2.00% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,421 | 77.6% | 71 min | 2.67% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,230 | 72.8% | 71 min | 1.35% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,110 | 70.5% | 71 min | 2.16% | C |
JetBlue leads Alaska by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh 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 21 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,027 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am1,331 flights82.7%
- 11am–2pm1,007 flights81.4%
- 2pm–5pm791 flights71.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,203 flights66.9%
- 8pm–5am1,348 flights63.4%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.4% on time, against 84.8% 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.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
December is the weak month at 65.0% on time, against 85.8% in September. 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.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.5%. 9 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 121,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% 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 48,000 minutes out of 121,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
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 84.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.95% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
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. 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 6,705 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,707 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 December 65.0%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else.
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 25.1% of the 6,707 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to SFO?
JetBlue Airways leads at 77.8% on time across 1,946 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 70.5%, 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 84.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.4%, 21 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 SFO?
December is the weakest month at 65.0% on time, compared with 85.8% in September. Across the year that is 21 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
- JetBlue Airways on-time record77.8%
- American Airlines on-time record77.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.8%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.