Route profile
SNA→JFK
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Santa Ana to New York, 2,454 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 11% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 1,219 flights. How this is calculated
SNA → JFK arrives on time 73.6% of the time; the return trip, JFK → SNA, arrives on time 87.6% of the time, a 14.0-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
SNA → JFK spends 30.0 minutes on the ground on a 2,454-mile trip: 17.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at SNA and 12.8 minutes from touchdown to gate at JFK.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route's worst arrivals run unusually far past its typical one, a bigger gap than 97% of 4,598 comparable routes.
A typical arrival is 7 min early, but the worst tenth run 82 minutes worse than that.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 4,598 in the comparison.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
75 min late
against a median of 7 min early
SNA → JFK has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 7 min early, but the worst tenth are 82 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 1,219 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at JFK after arriving from SNA.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 41% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 25% | High risk |
| 60 min | 19% | High risk |
| 90 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 8.5% | 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 1.56% of the time and diverts 2.30% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 1,172 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 75 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 1,219 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Why SNA → JFK runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for SNA → JFK. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,133 | 72.5% | 1.24% | -6 min | 13.3% |
Other ways to fly Los Angeles to New York
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
LAX → JFK is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 79.8% on time, against 73.6% for SNA → JFK.
Flying to JFK from the Los Angeles area? Compare SNA, LAX, BUR, ONT for JFK, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Thursday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 11.1 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.6% against 72.6% in the 12 months before — improving by 3.0 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,219 SNA → 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