Carrier route record

B6MSY→JFK

JetBlue Airways · New Orleans to New York

Flights: 415
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 36%
Carriers: 3

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

JetBlue on MSY to JFK sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 415 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so JetBlue on MSY to JFK runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.

On time

73.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 399 completed flights

Avg delay

95 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.37%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.7%

Every carrier on MSY to JFK, 1,142 flights

These figures cover 415 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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 MSY to JFK

JetBlue flew 415 of the 1,142 flights on MSY to JFK, about 36% of it. Its 73.2% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 82.0% to Frontier at 71.4%. 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 MSY to JFK
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	720	82.0%	69 min	5.56%	B−
JetBlue Airways (this page)	415	73.2%	95 min	3.37%	C−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	7	71.4%	96 min	0.00%	C+

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 46 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–8am37 flights91.9%
8am–11am48 flights93.8%
11am–2pm223 flights72.9%
2pm–5pm36 flights72.7%
5pm–8pm59 flights47.4%
8pm–5am12 flights—

Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 47.4% on time, against 93.8% for the 8am–11am 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 223 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

JetBlue on MSY to JFK through the year

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

May is the best month on the calendar at 87.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 54 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.0%. 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 46% of the 10,000 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
46%
National Airspace System
28%
Carrier
26%
Extreme weather
0%
Security
0%

46% 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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 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 10,202 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.8% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.37%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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. 11.3% 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 1,182 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.0% on time across 415 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 415 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 MSY to JFK

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.37% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 399 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