Route reliability record
PIT→JFK
Pittsburgh to New York
- Flights
- 1,764
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 340 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% 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 1,764 PIT to JFK flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,310 at 87.8% on time.
Best time to fly PIT to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.0%, against 87.0% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. 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 1,701 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
87.8% on time across 1,310 flights
These figures cover 1,764 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 PIT to JFK
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,310 | 87.8% | 74 min | 2.52% | A |
| JetBlue Airways | 454 | 84.7% | 89 min | 6.17% | B− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 6.2% 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.
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 | 85.6% | 87.8% | 2.52% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4568 09:22 |
| 2. PIT → EWRPittsburgh to Newark | Republic Airways | 84.3% | 87.5% | 3.65% | 8am–11am, Wed (route) | YX 3560 09:00 |
| 3. PIT → JFKPittsburgh to New York | JetBlue Airways | 79.5% | 84.7% | 6.17% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1198 06:00 |
| 4. PIT → LGAPittsburgh to New York | Republic Airways | 77.7% | 81.7% | 4.89% | 5am–8am, Fri | 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 20 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am846 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am257 flights90.3%
- 11am–2pm393 flights82.9%
- 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.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 72.0% for the evening 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 846 flights scheduled in it.
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.
December is the weak month at 73.9% on time, against 93.4% in August. 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 89.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 83.3%. 6 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 17,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Carrier
- 32%National Airspace System
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 6,016 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,288 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 91.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.46%, 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 actually costs
5.1% 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 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.8% on time across 1,764 flights, 11 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 11 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 3.46% 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. 1,701 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 eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.0% of the 1,764 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 PIT to JFK?
Republic Airways leads at 87.8% on time across 1,310 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 84.7%, a gap of 3 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 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.0%, 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 December delays on PIT to JFK?
December is the weakest month at 73.9% on time, compared with 93.4% in August. 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 PIT — the return legseparate record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PIT to JFK87.8%
- JetBlue Airways on PIT to JFK84.7%
- PIT to ORD, a related route78.6%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- PIT to LGA, a related route80.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record87.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record84.7%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.