Route reliability record
JFK→SLC
New York to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 1,929
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,990 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,929 JFK to SLC flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,536 at 78.6% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to SLC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.1% of the time and Monday flights 81.1%, against 76.4% 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
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,879 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
78.6% on time across 1,536 flights
These figures cover 1,929 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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 SLC
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 78.6% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 67.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 393 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,536 | 78.6% | 66 min | 1.95% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 393 | 67.6% | 64 min | 4.33% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.3% 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 SLC
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 Salt Lake City
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 → SLCNew York to Salt Lake City | Delta Air Lines | 77.1% | 78.6% | 1.95% | 8am–11am, Mon | DL 892 06:00 |
| 2. EWR → SLCNewark to Salt Lake City | United Airlines | 75.4% | 77.0% | 2.11% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. EWR → SLCNewark to Salt Lake City | Delta Air Lines | 74.9% | 76.7% | 2.35% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 1009 07:15 |
| 4. JFK → SLCNew York to Salt Lake City | JetBlue Airways | 64.7% | 67.6% | 4.33% | 5pm–8pm, Mon | B6 71 18:30 |
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 18 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights87.1%
- 8am–11am228 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm264 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm361 flights76.9%
- 5pm–8pm711 flights69.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.1% of the time, against 69.3% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 711 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK to SLC 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 SLC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.3%, a wide gap of 17.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.1%
- 8–11am78.7%
- 11am–2pm77.6%
- 2–5pm76.9%
- 5–8pm69.3%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 61.1% on time, 24 points below September, the best at 84.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 197 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.3%, a spread of 9 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 29,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%National Airspace System
- 38%Carrier
- 18%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% 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 11,000 minutes out of 29,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 28,951 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.44% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,990 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 81.3% on time across 1,932 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 1,929 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 SLC 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 84.7% on time and August 61.1%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,879 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to SLC questions
How often is JFK to SLC 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 23.6% of the 1,929 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to SLC?
Delta Air Lines leads at 78.6% on time across 1,536 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 67.6%, a gap of 11 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 SLC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.3%, 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 SLC?
August is the weakest month at 61.1% on time, compared with 84.7% in September. Across the year that is 24 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
- SLC to JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to SLC78.6%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to SLC67.6%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.6%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record67.6%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. JFK to SLC and SLC to JFK are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed JFK to SLC’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.