Route profile
ATL→JFK
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Atlanta to New York, 760 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 20% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 11,969 flights. How this is calculated
ATL → JFK arrives on time 74.8% of the time; the return trip, JFK → ATL, arrives on time 76.0% of the time.
ATL → JFK spends 29.8 minutes on the ground on a 760-mile trip: 18.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at ATL and 11.6 minutes from touchdown to gate at JFK.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why ATL → JFK flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
ATL → JFK cancelled 198 of 11,969 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 60. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 52.5% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 115 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 198 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
104 cancellations, 52.5% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
58 cancellations, 29.3% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
36 cancellations, 18.2% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
198 coded cancellations were recorded on ATL → JFK; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
61 min late
against a median of 5 min early
ATL → JFK has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 5 min early, but the worst tenth are 66 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 11,969 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at JFK after arriving from ATL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 40% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 25% | High risk |
| 60 min | 17% | High risk |
| 90 min | 10% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 6.4% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.65% of the time and diverts 0.26% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,740 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 61 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,969 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
ATL → JFK flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 86.1% of the time, against 63.9% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 22.2 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 80.0% on time from 263 flights
- 6 AM: 82.0% on time from 615 flights
- 7 AM: 87.4% on time from 1,437 flights
- 8 AM: 90.1% on time from 551 flights
- 9 AM: 81.0% on time from 1,112 flights
- 10 AM: 80.3% on time from 619 flights
- 11 AM: 76.6% on time from 552 flights
- 12 PM: 78.8% on time from 1,006 flights
- 1 PM: 71.7% on time from 338 flights
- 2 PM: 65.9% on time from 298 flights
- 3 PM: 71.9% on time from 807 flights
- 4 PM: 65.4% on time from 673 flights
- 5 PM: 63.7% on time from 406 flights
- 6 PM: 64.8% on time from 638 flights
- 7 PM: 66.0% on time from 986 flights
- 8 PM: 51.6% on time from 226 flights
- 9 PM: 74.0% on time from 613 flights
- 10 PM: 62.3% on time from 829 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why ATL → JFK runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
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 ATL → JFK. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of ATL to JFK: 3.3 times the normal rate at ATL and 3.5 times at JFK. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: ATL 3.4% against 1.0%, JFK 6.0% against 1.7%. Flights that did leave JFK in bad weather arrived on time 64.1% of the time, against 79.7% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | ATL | JFK |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.4% | 6.0% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.0% | 1.7% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 66.5% | 64.1% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.2% | 79.7% |
| Departures in bad weather | 105,854 | 46,497 |
Frontier Airlines (5.0% cancelled against 3.8% for the other carriers at ATL) cancelled more departures from ATL in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly better.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at ATL
All departures from ATL| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 73,919 | 3.5%about level | 3.6% |
| JetBlue | 977 | 4.0%about level | 3.3% |
| Frontier Airlines | 4,928 | 5.0%above the others | 3.8% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from ATL and JFK, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from ATL on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: ATL (airlines), JFK, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 7,576 | 78.4% | 0.88% | -6 min | 7.9% |
| JetBlue | 3,248 | 68.9% | 3.20% | -2 min | 14.3% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,145 | 67.5% | 2.36% | 0 min | 14.2% |
Delta Air Lines flew 63.3% of the 11,969 flights listed. JetBlue cancelled 3.20% of its flights here against 0.88% for Delta Air Lines.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 10.9 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Other ways to fly Atlanta to New York
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
ATL → LGA is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 76.4% on time, against 72.5% for ATL → EWR.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| B6520 JetBlue | 9:09 AM | 923 | 66.0% |
| DL2380 Delta Air Lines | 12:15 PM | 901 | 79.7% |
| DL2386 Delta Air Lines | 10:30 PM | 813 | 72.4% |
| DL2378 Delta Air Lines | 7:59 PM | 798 | 68.3% |
| DL2420 Delta Air Lines | 7:45 AM | 764 | 87.6% |
| DL1034 Delta Air Lines | 8:55 AM | 673 | 88.6% |
| DL2398 Delta Air Lines | 3:59 PM | 657 | 73.7% |
DL1034 (8:55 AM) arrived on time 88.6% of the time, 22.6 points more often than B6520 (9:09 AM) at 66.0%.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 9.8 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 74.8%
- Feb: 79.5%
- Mar: 72.0%
- Apr: 79.1%
- May: 73.9%
- Jun: 70.4%
- Jul: 61.9%
- Aug: 74.6%
- Sep: 80.8%
- Oct: 83.9%
- Nov: 80.7%
- Dec: 69.0%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 22.0 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 64.1% from 284 flights
- August 2023: 69.6% from 288 flights
- September 2023: 72.1% from 322 flights
- October 2023: 85.7% from 338 flights
- November 2023: 85.2% from 307 flights
- December 2023: 76.9% from 303 flights
- January 2024: 76.9% from 242 flights
- February 2024: 86.6% from 235 flights
- March 2024: 69.2% from 250 flights
- April 2024: 75.2% from 252 flights
- May 2024: 79.8% from 310 flights
- June 2024: 76.4% from 285 flights
- July 2024: 61.0% from 279 flights
- August 2024: 74.2% from 302 flights
- September 2024: 84.5% from 324 flights
- October 2024: 86.9% from 343 flights
- November 2024: 80.2% from 355 flights
- December 2024: 69.2% from 361 flights
- January 2025: 74.2% from 311 flights
- February 2025: 75.3% from 292 flights
- March 2025: 74.5% from 293 flights
- April 2025: 81.3% from 327 flights
- May 2025: 66.2% from 391 flights
- June 2025: 59.3% from 363 flights
- July 2025: 61.5% from 371 flights
- August 2025: 78.8% from 376 flights
- September 2025: 84.7% from 387 flights
- October 2025: 79.7% from 400 flights
- November 2025: 77.6% from 394 flights
- December 2025: 62.6% from 394 flights
- January 2026: 73.9% from 349 flights
- February 2026: 77.8% from 306 flights
- March 2026: 72.0% from 308 flights
- April 2026: 79.9% from 315 flights
- May 2026: 77.7% from 321 flights
- June 2026: 76.9% from 342 flights
- July 2026: 61.1% from 349 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.2% against 73.6% in the 12 months before — improving by 1.6 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,969 ATL → JFK flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed