Route reliability record
ORF→JFK
Norfolk to New York
- Flights
- 731
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 290 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 8.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five 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 731 ORF to JFK flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly ORF to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Monday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.4% of the time and Monday flights 81.5%, against 79.2% 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
79.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 668 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
8.62%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
79.2% on time across 731 flights
These figures cover 731 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORF to JFK
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 731 | 79.2% | 76 min | 8.62% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on ORF to JFK
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 Norfolk 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORF → EWRNorfolk to Newark | Republic Airways | 75.1% | 80.8% | 7.07% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORF → JFKNorfolk to New York | Republic Airways | 72.4% | 79.2% | 8.62% | 5am–8am, Mon | YX 4359 17:32 |
| 3. ORF → LGANorfolk to New York | Republic Airways | 69.7% | 74.3% | 6.18% | 8am–11am, Tue | YX 4621 12:50 |
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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am65 flights95.4%
- 8am–11am197 flights88.4%
- 11am–2pm27 flights—
- 2pm–5pm2 flights—
- 5pm–8pm440 flights73.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.4% of the time, against 73.2% for the evening window. That is 22 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 440 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORF 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 ORF to JFK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.2%, a wide gap of 22.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.4%
- 8–11am88.4%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm73.2%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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.
June is the worst month at 57.4% on time, 34 points below September, the best at 91.5%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 75 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.4%, a spread of 8 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 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%National Airspace System
- 12%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 10,599 reported delay minutes.
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 3,811 minutes out of 11,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 8.62%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twelve 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
7.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 290 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.4% on time across 731 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 731 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.
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 8.62% 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. 668 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORF to JFK questions
How often is ORF to JFK delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.8% of the 731 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is ORF to JFK compared with the rest of the country?
79.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORF to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.2%, 22 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 June delays on ORF to JFK?
June is the weakest month at 57.4% on time, compared with 91.5% in September. Across the year that is 34 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 ORF — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- ORF to ATL, a related route85.1%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- ORF to CLT, a related route81.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record79.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORF to JFK and JFK to ORF 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.