Route reliability record

PHX→JFK

Phoenix to New York

Flights: 2,970
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 2,153 mi
Carriers: 3

This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,970 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 917 at 87.0% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 87.0% on time across 917 flights.

On time

79.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,876 completed flights

Avg delay

76 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.69%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Delta

87.0% on time across 917 flights

These figures cover 2,970 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on PHX to JFK

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.0% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 73.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 531 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to JFK
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	917	87.0%	84 min	3.27%	A−
American Airlines	1,522	77.3%	74 min	2.10%	B
JetBlue Airways	531	73.9%	74 min	3.39%	C−

JetBlue Airways cancels 3.4% 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.

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 20 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am557 flights92.0%
8am–11am345 flights77.8%
11am–2pm673 flights73.0%
2pm–5pm468 flights71.8%
5pm–8pm16 flights—
8pm–5am911 flights81.7%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.0% of the time, against 71.8% for the afternoon window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 911 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 19 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

July is the worst month at 70.3% on time, 19 points below April, the best at 89.6%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 289 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.9%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 44,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
41%
Late-arriving aircraft
35%
National Airspace System
23%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
1%

35% 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 44,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 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 44,359 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 18,000 of the 44,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations run at 2.69%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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

7.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,153 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg runs 77.9% on time across 2,972 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 2,970 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.

What to do with this

Booking this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 89.6% on time and July 70.3%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,876 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

PHX to JFK questions

How often is PHX to JFK delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.3% of the 2,970 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on PHX to JFK?

Delta Air Lines leads at 87.0% on time across 917 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 73.9%, a gap of 13 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 PHX to JFK?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 71.8%, 20 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 July delays on PHX to JFK?

July is the weakest month at 70.3% on time, compared with 89.6% in April. Across the year that is 19 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. PHX to JFK and JFK to PHX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures