Route reliability record
ORD→JFK
Chicago to New York
- Flights
- 2,135
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 740 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,135 ORD to JFK flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 633 at 78.2% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 77.8%, against 72.5% for the route overall.
JetBlue Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.2% on time across 633 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,013 completed flights
Avg delay
93 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.39%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
78.2% on time across 633 flights
These figures cover 2,135 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to JFK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. JetBlue Airways arrives on time 78.2% of the time; American Airlines manages 60.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 541 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 14 | 92.3% | 221 min | 7.14% | A− |
| JetBlue Airways | 633 | 78.2% | 105 min | 7.90% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 830 | 77.5% | 75 min | 3.73% | B− |
| American Airlines | 541 | 60.5% | 98 min | 5.18% | D− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 117 | 59.8% | 100 min | 4.27% | D− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 7.9% 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.
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 Chicago to New York
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → JFKChicago to New York | Republic Airways | 74.6% | 77.5% | 3.73% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → EWRChicago to Newark | Envoy Air | 73.5% | 78.0% | 5.82% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → HPNChicago to White Plains | Envoy Air | 73.4% | 76.3% | 3.78% | 8am–11am, Sat | MQ 3812 08:10 |
| 4. ORD → JFKChicago to New York | JetBlue Airways | 72.0% | 78.2% | 7.90% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. ORD → EWRChicago to Newark | United Airlines | 69.9% | 72.0% | 2.85% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 563 07:10 |
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 40 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am606 flights84.6%
- 8am–11am475 flights78.0%
- 11am–2pm569 flights66.9%
- 2pm–5pm372 flights61.3%
- 5pm–8pm113 flights44.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 35% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 44.8% on time, against 84.6% 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 606 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to JFK 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 ORD to JFK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 44.8%, a wide gap of 39.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.6%
- 8–11am78.0%
- 11am–2pm66.9%
- 2–5pm61.3%
- 5–8pm44.8%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 35% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 61.5% on time, against 87.4% in May. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 217 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.0%, a spread of 11 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 51,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 51,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 51,310 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 17,000 minutes out of 51,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 5.39%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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 actually costs
12.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 740 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.
The return leg runs 70.4% on time across 2,136 flights, within 2 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 2,135 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 JFK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.39% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 2,013 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to JFK questions
How often is ORD to JFK delayed?
Roughly 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 27.5% of the 2,135 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to JFK?
JetBlue Airways leads at 78.2% on time across 633 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 60.5%, a gap of 18 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 ORD to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 44.8%, 40 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 ORD to JFK?
December is the weakest month at 61.5% on time, compared with 87.4% in May. Across the year that is 26 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
- JFK to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on ORD to JFK78.2%
- Republic Airways on ORD to JFK77.5%
- American Airlines on ORD to JFK60.5%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to JFK59.8%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record92.3%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record78.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ORD to JFK and JFK to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.