Flight profile · JetBlue
B6161
New York (JFK) to Sacramento (SMF) · scheduled 6:30 PM – 9:50 PM
How B6161 performs
741 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 741 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If B6161 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 B6161 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight's worst arrivals run unusually far past its typical one, a bigger gap than 92% of 11,788 comparable flight numbers.
A typical arrival is 4 min late, but the worst tenth run 96 minutes worse than that.
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 B6161 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
Ask for the position of B6161 right now, if receivers on the ground are hearing it. Nothing is requested until you press the button.
Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B6161 | 59.6% | 1.89% | 4 min | 18.1% | 741 |
| JetBlue on JFK → SMF | 59.6% | 1.89% | 4 min | 18.1% | 741 |
| All JFK → SMF flights | 59.6% | 1.89% | 4 min | 18.1% | 741 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why B6161 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 B6161 on JFK → SMF. 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 B6161 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying B6161 came in 15 or more minutes late on 32% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into JFK just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 238 of 732 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 |
|---|---|
| B6161 | 32% |
| Network, same turn | 23% |
The schedule leaves a long gap on the ground, which gives a late aircraft room to catch up before this flight pushes back.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 90 minutes to 3 hours. How often B6161’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
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 SMF?
B6161 pushes back an average of 30.0 minutes late and reaches the gate at SMF an average of 20.0 minutes late. The 10.0 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 34.8 minutes on the taxiways at JFK, 1.8 minutes longer than a typical JFK departure in the same hour.
On arrival at SMF, B6161 spends 7.8 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 2.6 minutes longer than a typical SMF arrival (5.1 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 SMF. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 18,053 departures from JFK scheduled in the clock hour B6161 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at SMF (172,477 flights), not just B6161’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. B6161 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 18,053 departures from JFK are scheduled in the 6 PM–7 PM hour over the period, against 351,635 across the whole day.
B6161 is scheduled out of JFK at 6:30 PM, in the 6 PM–7 PM bank. Departures from JFK in that hour arrive on time 67.9% of the time against 77.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 9.2 points worse 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 B6161 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| BOS→SJU Boston to San Juan | January 7, 2025 – April 25, 2026 | 253 | 61.7% |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route B6161 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.
100 min late
against a median of 4 min late
B6161 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 4 min late, but the worst tenth are 96 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 741 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 741 records of B6161 operating JFK → SMF, 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