Route reliability record
SAN→JFK
San Diego to New York
- Flights
- 2,413
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,446 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,413 flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 727 at 84.3% on time.
JetBlue Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 84.3% on time across 727 flights.
Key figures
On time
83.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,326 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.65%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
JetBlue
84.3% on time across 727 flights
These figures cover 2,413 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to JFK
The three carriers here are closely matched: about a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 727 | 84.3% | 119 min | 3.30% | B− |
| Alaska Airlines | 650 | 83.7% | 52 min | 1.38% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,036 | 83.5% | 105 min | 2.99% | B |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.3% 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.
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 18 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am652 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am187 flights85.0%
- 11am–2pm519 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm122 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am933 flights85.3%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.5% of the time, against 70.9% for the afternoon window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 933 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 14 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.
July is the worst month at 75.6% on time, 14 points below September, the best at 89.4%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 213 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.6%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 42% of the 36,000 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.
- 42%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 15,000 of the 36,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 35,724 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.65%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
6.1% 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 are the an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,446 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 79.1% on time across 2,413 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,413 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.4% on time and July 75.6%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,326 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAN to JFK questions
How often is SAN to JFK delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.2% of the 2,413 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to JFK?
JetBlue Airways leads at 84.3% on time across 727 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 83.5%, a gap of about a point. 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 SAN to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 70.9%, 18 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 July delays on SAN to JFK?
July is the weakest month at 75.6% on time, compared with 89.4% in September. Across the year that is 14 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 SAN — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on-time record84.3%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record83.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.5%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. SAN to JFK and JFK to SAN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.