Carrier route record
DLRSW→JFK
Delta Air Lines · Fort Myers to New York
- Flights
- 472
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 37%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on RSW to JFK lands a B−, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 472 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on RSW to JFK from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 445 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.3%
Every carrier on RSW to JFK, 1,279 flights
These figures cover 472 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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
Delta against every carrier on RSW to JFK
Delta flew 472 of the 1,279 flights on RSW to JFK, about 37% of it. Its 80.4% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 80.4% to JetBlue at 75.4%.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 472 | 80.4% | 73 min | 5.08% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 807 | 75.4% | 80 min | 5.08% | B− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm359 flights81.7%
- 2pm–5pm3 flights—
- 5pm–8pm47 flights63.6%
- 8pm–5am63 flights86.7%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.6% on time, against 86.7% for the 8pm–5am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 359 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on RSW to JFK through the year
June is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 30 points below September, the best at 96.7%. 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.3%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on RSW to JFK runs when it is late
Delta on RSW to JFK often beats the schedule: 197 of 445 completed flights, 44%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 87 late arrivals split 30 under half an hour, 25 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 32 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early197 flights44.3%
- Within 15 min161 flights36.2%
- 15–29 min late30 flights6.7%
- 30–59 min late25 flights5.6%
- 1–2 hours late17 flights3.8%
- 2+ hours late15 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 445 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
20 of 81 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. In the other direction, 26 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at JFK.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on RSW to JFK
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 December 2025, 12 hours 36 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 December 2025 | 12 hours 36 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 27 December 2025 | 5 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 August 2026 | 4 hours 13 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 March 2026 | 3 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 March 2026 | 3 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 6,382 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 14%Extreme weather
- 12%Carrier
Extreme weather accounts for 14% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.4 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 6,382 reported delay minutes.
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,382 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 5.08%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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 costs
7.2% 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.
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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.7% on time across 472 flights, 5 points above 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 472 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 RSW to JFK
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.08% 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. 445 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RSW to JFK, every carrier
- Delta on JFK to RSW, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on RSW to JFK75.4%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.