Flight profile · JetBlue
B61602
New York (JFK) to Buffalo (BUF) · scheduled 7:30 AM – 9:00 AM
How B61602 performs
837 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
B61602 arrived on time 79.7% of the time, against 74.0% for all JFK → BUF flights, so this departure is 5.7 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against JetBlue’s own flights on this route it is 9.9 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 837 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If B61602 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How B61602 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
Every day of the week performs about the same on this flight, steadier than 100% of 1,710 comparable flight numbers.
79.8% on time on the best day (Friday) against 79.0% on the worst (Sunday).
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where B61602 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B61602 | 79.7% | 2.63% | -8 min | 8.5% | 837 |
| JetBlue on JFK → BUF | 69.8% | 3.63% | -4 min | 13.9% | 4,135 |
| All JFK → BUF flights | 74.0% | 3.69% | -6 min | 11.3% | 6,256 |
B61602 has cancelled 2.63% of its scheduled departures (22 of 837), against 3.69% for all JFK → BUF flights — this specific departure cancels 1.1 percentage points less often than the route as a whole. Different flight numbers on the same route can carry different aircraft, crews and schedules, so this is a fact about B61602 specifically, not about the route it flies.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why B61602 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for B61602 on JFK → BUF. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies B61602 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, B61602 pushed back an average of 36 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 2 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into JFK just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 691 of 816 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| B61602 | 24% | 50% | 12% |
| Network, same turn | 17% | 68% | 9% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 60 to 89 minutes. How often B61602’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often B61602 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves JFK late, does that still matter by the time it reaches BUF?
B61602 pushes back an average of 12.0 minutes late and reaches the gate at BUF an average of 5.8 minutes late. The 6.2 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 23.3 minutes on the taxiways at JFK, 1.6 minutes shorter than a typical JFK departure in the same hour.
On arrival at BUF, B61602 spends 4.2 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 1.6 minutes shorter than a typical BUF arrival (5.8 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached BUF. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 28,461 departures from JFK scheduled in the clock hour B61602 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at BUF (65,593 flights), not just B61602’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves JFK
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. B61602 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 28,461 departures from JFK are scheduled in the 7 AM–8 AM hour over the period, against 351,635 across the whole day.
B61602 is scheduled out of JFK at 7:30 AM, in the 7 AM–8 AM bank. Departures from JFK in that hour arrive on time 85.9% of the time against 77.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.9 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from JFK to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes B61602 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHX→FLL Phoenix to Fort Lauderdale | December 19, 2024 – January 6, 2025 | 18 | — |
| FLL→JFK Fort Lauderdale to New York | December 3, 2024 | 1 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route B61602 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
48 min late
against a median of 8 min early
Percentiles over 837 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B61602 this flight | JetBlue | 79.7% | 8 min early | 837 |
| B62902 | JetBlue | 73.2% | 6 min early | 669 |
| B6102 | JetBlue | 59.2% | 3 min late | 890 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. B61602 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 837 records of B61602 operating JFK → BUF, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed