Route reliability record
PIT→JFK
Pittsburgh to New York
- Flights
- 1,764
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 340 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five 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 1,764 PIT to JFK flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,310 at 86.8% on time.
Best time to fly PIT to JFK: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.3%, against 85.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 86 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,679 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.59%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
86.8% on time across 1,310 flights
These figures cover 1,764 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 PIT to JFK
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,310 | 86.8% | 78 min | 3.59% | A− |
| JetBlue Airways | 454 | 83.3% | 82 min | 7.49% | B− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 7.5% 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
Flights on PIT 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Pittsburgh 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 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PIT → JFKPittsburgh to New York | Republic Airways | 83.7% | 86.8% | 3.59% | 5am–8am, Wed | YX 4568 09:22 |
| 2. PIT → EWRPittsburgh to Newark | Republic Airways | 83.1% | 87.5% | 5.02% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | YX 3560 09:00 |
| 3. PIT → JFKPittsburgh to New York | JetBlue Airways | 77.1% | 83.3% | 7.49% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1198 06:00 |
| 4. PIT → LGAPittsburgh to New York | Republic Airways | 75.9% | 80.5% | 5.77% | 5am–8am, Fri (route) | YX 5753 06:05 |
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 19 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am811 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am292 flights89.6%
- 11am–2pm393 flights82.3%
- 2pm–5pm7 flights—
- 5pm–8pm216 flights72.0%
- 8pm–5am45 flights90.7%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 90.7% on time. The full set of windows spans 19 points.
Explore
Filter PIT 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 PIT to JFK, the best departure window is 8pm–5am at 90.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 72.0%, a wide gap of 18.7 points. All US flights leaving 8pm–5am ran 70.1%.
- 5–8am89.9%
- 8–11am89.6%
- 11am–2pm82.3%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm72.0%
- 8pm–5am90.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 73.9% on time, against 90.5% in November. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 183 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.4%, 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 19,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 33%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 6,642 minutes out of 19,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 18,698 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.59%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
5.7% 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 340 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 8pm–5am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.7% on time across 1,764 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,764 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 4.59% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8pm–5am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,679 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PIT to JFK questions
How often is PIT to JFK delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.1% of the 1,764 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PIT to JFK?
Republic Airways leads at 86.8% on time across 1,310 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 83.3%, a gap of 4 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 PIT to JFK?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 90.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.0%, 19 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 PIT to JFK?
December is the weakest month at 73.9% on time, compared with 90.5% in November. Across the year that is 17 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 PIT — the return legseparate record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PIT to JFK86.8%
- JetBlue Airways on PIT to JFK83.3%
- PIT to ORD, a related route77.1%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- PIT to LGA, a related route79.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record86.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record83.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. PIT to JFK and JFK to PIT 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.