Carrier route record

DLJFK→SLC

Delta Air Lines · New York to Salt Lake City

Flights: 1,535
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 80%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on JFK to SLC lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,535 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on JFK to SLC from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,508 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.63%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.4%

Every carrier on JFK to SLC, 1,928 flights

These figures cover 1,535 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on JFK to SLC

Delta flew 1,535 of the 1,928 flights on JFK to SLC, most of the route. Its 80.8% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 80.8% to JetBlue at 68.7%.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on JFK to SLC
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines (this page)	1,535	80.8%	64 min	1.63%	B
JetBlue Airways	393	68.7%	68 min	2.54%	C

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on JFK to SLC

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am365 flights87.4%
8am–11am165 flights87.5%
11am–2pm261 flights84.2%
2pm–5pm364 flights80.0%
5pm–8pm380 flights70.2%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.5% of the time, against 70.2% for the evening window. That is 17 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 380 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on JFK to SLC through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.August best, January worst

January is the weak month at 68.6% on time, against 91.9% in August. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.

Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.6%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% of the 19,000 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.

Carrier
43%
National Airspace System
36%
Late-arriving aircraft
17%
Extreme weather
4%

36% 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 6,634 minutes out of 19,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 18,597 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 7,976 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 runs 83.5% on time across 1,538 flights, within 3 points 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 1,535 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 Delta on JFK to SLC

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. August runs 91.9% on time and January 68.6%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,508 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures