Route reliability record
RSW→JFK
Fort Myers to New York
- Flights
- 1,279
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,074 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,279 RSW to JFK flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 472 at 82.6% on time.
Best time to fly RSW to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.8%, against 77.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
77.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,222 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.91%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
82.6% on time across 472 flights
These figures cover 1,279 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on RSW to JFK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.6% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 74.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 807 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 472 | 82.6% | 76 min | 4.45% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 807 | 74.8% | 80 min | 3.59% | C− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 4.5% 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fort Myers 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. RSW → EWRFort Myers to Newark | United Airlines | 79.8% | 81.2% | 1.76% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. RSW → JFKFort Myers to New York | Delta Air Lines | 78.9% | 82.6% | 4.45% | 8pm–5am, Sat | — |
| 3. RSW → JFKFort Myers to New York | JetBlue Airways | 72.1% | 74.8% | 3.59% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. RSW → LGAFort Myers to New York | Delta Air Lines | 69.6% | 72.4% | 3.84% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 2310 19:59 |
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 27 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am214 flights88.3%
- 8am–11am95 flights79.3%
- 11am–2pm623 flights80.4%
- 2pm–5pm123 flights61.2%
- 5pm–8pm128 flights65.8%
- 8pm–5am96 flights70.7%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.3% of the time, against 61.2% for the afternoon window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 623 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 91.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. February was the busiest month here, with 135 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.5%. 11 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 22,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% 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 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 21,596 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 88.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.91%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,074 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 78.8% on time across 1,281 flights, within about 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 1,279 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 3.91% 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. 1,222 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RSW to JFK questions
How often is RSW to JFK delayed?
Roughly 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 22.3% of the 1,279 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 RSW to JFK?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.6% on time across 472 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 74.8%, a gap of 8 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 RSW to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 61.2%, 27 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 March delays on RSW to JFK?
March is the weakest month at 68.3% on time, compared with 91.0% in May. Across the year that is 23 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 RSW — the return legseparate record
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on RSW to JFK82.6%
- JetBlue Airways on RSW to JFK74.8%
- RSW to ORD, a related route76.5%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- RSW to ATL, a related route85.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.6%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record74.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. RSW to JFK and JFK to RSW 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.