Carrier route record

DLSLC→JFK

Delta Air Lines · Salt Lake City to New York

Flights: 1,538
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 80%
Carriers: 2

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

Delta on SLC to JFK lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,538 flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's SLC to JFK record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 59 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,505 completed flights

Avg delay

68 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.63%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

82.0%

Every carrier on SLC to JFK, 1,931 flights

These figures cover 1,538 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 15 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

Delta against every carrier on SLC to JFK

Delta flew 1,538 of the 1,931 flights on SLC to JFK, most of the route. Its 83.5% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 82.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.5% to JetBlue at 75.9%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on SLC to JFK
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines (this page)	1,538	83.5%	68 min	1.63%	B
JetBlue Airways	393	75.9%	99 min	3.05%	B−

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on SLC to JFK

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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am78 flights97.4%
8am–11am365 flights86.2%
11am–2pm62 flights83.1%
2pm–5pm301 flights74.7%
5pm–8pm365 flights80.2%
8pm–5am367 flights88.6%

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 97.4% of the time, against 74.7% for the afternoon window. That is 23 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 367 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on SLC to JFK through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, July worst

July is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 26 points below September, the best at 92.4%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.4%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 17,000 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.

Carrier
44%
National Airspace System
28%
Late-arriving aircraft
24%
Extreme weather
4%

The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 7,338 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,735 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.52%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.4% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,990 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 80.8% on time across 1,535 flights, within 3 points 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 1,538 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 Delta on SLC to JFK

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 92.4% on time and July 66.7%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,505 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