Route reliability record
PBI→JFK
West Palm Beach to New York
- Flights
- 2,051
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,028 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 2,051 PBI to JFK flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 1,384 at 77.5% on time.
Best time to fly PBI to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.4%, against 74.3% 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
74.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,957 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.29%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
77.5% on time across 1,384 flights
These figures cover 2,051 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% 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 PBI to JFK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. JetBlue Airways arrives on time 77.5% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 67.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 667 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 1,384 | 77.5% | 83 min | 4.12% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 667 | 67.7% | 101 min | 4.65% | C− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 4.7% 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 West Palm Beach 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → EWRFort Lauderdale to Newark | United Airlines | 76.1% | 78.1% | 2.57% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. PBI → EWRWest Palm Beach to Newark | United Airlines | 76.1% | 77.9% | 2.33% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2158 06:00 |
| 3. PBI → ISPWest Palm Beach to Islip | JetBlue Airways | 75.4% | 76.8% | 1.85% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 544 10:09 |
| 4. PBI → JFKWest Palm Beach to New York | JetBlue Airways | 74.3% | 77.5% | 4.12% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. PBI → ISPWest Palm Beach to Islip | Southwest Airlines | 73.1% | 73.9% | 1.15% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 34 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am317 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am344 flights84.3%
- 11am–2pm559 flights74.3%
- 2pm–5pm166 flights68.6%
- 5pm–8pm312 flights64.1%
- 8pm–5am353 flights59.2%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.2% on time, against 92.8% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 559 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PBI 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 PBI to JFK, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 59.2%, a wide gap of 33.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.8%
- 8–11am84.3%
- 11am–2pm74.3%
- 2–5pm68.6%
- 5–8pm64.1%
- 8pm–5am59.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
January is the weak month at 66.1% on time, against 85.7% in September. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 220 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.9%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 to one. The split is drawn from 45,561 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 92.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.29%, against 1.89% 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 actually costs
12.4% 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 1,028 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 74.8% on time across 2,050 flights, within half a point 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 2,051 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 4.29% 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. 1,957 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PBI to JFK questions
How often is PBI to JFK delayed?
About 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 25.7% of the 2,051 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 PBI to JFK?
JetBlue Airways leads at 77.5% on time across 1,384 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 67.7%, a gap of 10 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 PBI to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.2%, 34 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 January delays on PBI to JFK?
January is the weakest month at 66.1% on time, compared with 85.7% in September. Across the year that is 20 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 PBI — the return legseparate record
- Palm Beach International (PBI) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on PBI to JFK77.5%
- Delta Air Lines on PBI to JFK67.7%
- PBI to ATL, a related route82.7%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- PBI to EWR, a related route75.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record77.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record67.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PBI to JFK and JFK to PBI 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.