Carrier route record
DLPHX→JFK
Delta Air Lines · Phoenix to New York
- Flights
- 917
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on PHX to JFK carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to nine flights in ten arrive on time, worth an A− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 917 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 1,522 at 77.3% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's PHX to JFK record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 94 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 880 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.7%
Every carrier on PHX to JFK, 2,970 flights
These figures cover 917 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 16 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
Delta against every carrier on PHX to JFK
Delta flew 917 of the 2,970 flights on PHX to JFK, about 31% of it. Its 87.0% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 79.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 87.0% to JetBlue at 73.9%.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 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.
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on PHX to JFK
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am365 flights93.5%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm364 flights79.7%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am188 flights88.5%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 79.7% on time against 93.5% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on PHX to JFK through the year
December is the weak month at 81.1% on time, against 93.8% 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. April was the busiest month here, with 87 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 96.3% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 80.6%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 54% of the 9,613 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.
- 54%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, 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 5,200 of the 9,613 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,613 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.27%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.3% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.9% on time across 917 flights, 13 points below 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 917 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 Delta on PHX to JFK
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.27% 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. 880 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to JFK, every carrier
- Delta on JFK to PHX, the return leg
- American Airlines on PHX to JFK77.3%
- JetBlue Airways on PHX to JFK73.9%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.