Carrier route record

B6JFK→TPA

JetBlue Airways · New York to Tampa

Flights: 1,049
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 46%
Carriers: 3

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

JetBlue on JFK to TPA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,049 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

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

On time

75.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,000 completed flights

Avg delay

74 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.91%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.1%

Every carrier on JFK to TPA, 2,301 flights

These figures cover 1,049 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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

JetBlue against every carrier on JFK to TPA

JetBlue flew 1,049 of the 2,301 flights on JFK to TPA, about 46% of it. Its 75.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 79.6% to Frontier at 67.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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 TPA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,094	79.6%	76 min	2.65%	B
JetBlue Airways (this page)	1,049	75.9%	74 min	3.91%	B−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	158	67.5%	77 min	0.63%	C+

Flight by flight

JetBlue flight numbers on JFK to TPA

Departure window

When JetBlue runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 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–8am297 flights90.6%
8am–11am99 flights78.7%
11am–2pm74 flights69.0%
2pm–5pm274 flights72.4%
5pm–8pm152 flights60.3%
8pm–5am153 flights70.1%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.3% on time, against 90.6% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 297 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

JetBlue on JFK to TPA through the year

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

August is the worst month at 65.9% on time, 20 points below May, the best at 85.7%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 110 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.1%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why JetBlue runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 18,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
49%
Carrier
25%
National Airspace System
19%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
0%

49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 17,803 reported delay minutes.

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 90.6% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.91%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.1% 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.

The 1,005 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 77.1% on time across 1,046 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,049 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking JetBlue on JFK to TPA

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.91% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,000 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