Carrier route record

B6SEA→JFK

JetBlue Airways · Seattle to New York

Flights: 166
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 6%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with JetBlue Airways.

JetBlue on SEA to JFK sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 166 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,337 at 79.6% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so JetBlue on SEA to JFK runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 56 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 164 completed flights

Avg delay

78 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.20%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.3%

Every carrier on SEA to JFK, 2,906 flights

These figures cover 166 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% 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

JetBlue against every carrier on SEA to JFK

JetBlue flew 166 of the 2,906 flights on SEA to JFK, about 6% of it. Its 72.0% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 79.6% to Alaska at 71.6%.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 79.6% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 71.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,403 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on SEA to JFK
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,337	79.6%	70 min	2.39%	B
JetBlue Airways (this page)thin sample	166	72.0%	78 min	1.20%	C
Alaska Airlines	1,403	71.6%	54 min	2.57%	C

Delta leads Alaska by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

Departure window

When JetBlue runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 166 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split JetBlue's SEA to JFK record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 72.0% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

JetBlue on SEA to JFK through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights65.9%
Oct–Dec 202525 flights—
Apr–Jun 202649 flights75.0%

Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 72.0% on time across 166 flights.

Split by quarter, JetBlue on SEA to JFK logged 92 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 25 flights in Oct–Dec 2025 and 49 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 72.0% annual figure is the one to use.

Delay causes

Why JetBlue runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 3,606 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
50%
Carrier
42%
National Airspace System
8%

50% 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 3,606 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 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 3,606 reported delay minutes.

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 1,509 of the 3,606 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.20% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.6% 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.

At 2,422 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 runs 71.3% on time across 166 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 166 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 JetBlue on SEA to JFK

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 166 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 72.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 164 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures