The Best and Worst Flights to and From Eight Cities - Airports 2007 -- New York Magazine

Choosing Well

PARIS (CDG) (ORY)
Flights to Paris all leave at night, which means any hang-ups the airport suffers throughout the day will affect departure. With one exception (see below), even the best direct flights —from both JFK and Newark—land on schedule less than 50 percent of the time. It’s virtually hopeless. The best of them is Delta’s Flight 118, from JFK to Charles de Gaulle, which leaves at 5 p.m., early enough to avoid some of the cascading delays of the evening. Also worth trying is Air France’s Flight 9, departing at 10:55 p.m., with average delays of only 31 minutes.

Best: L’Avion beats the system. The company owns a single jet, which leaves Newark six days a week at 7:05 p.m. and lands at Orly promptly at 7:45 a.m. 98 percent of the time. The $1,083 price tag may seem steep, but it’s an all-business-class carrier and it beats the fares of most other business-class options. L’Avion’s return flight is equally punctual, departing Paris at 2:50 p.m. and landing in Newark at 5:45 p.m.

Worst: Air France Flight 17, out of JFK. It supposedly leaves at 6 p.m., but there’s an 80 percent chance it won’t.

SAN FRANCISCO (SFO)
San Francisco International Airport’s position on the bay means frequent fog, which means frequent delays—even if you depart from New York on time. (Flights into Oakland and San Jose typically have even worse delays.) The best flights, with a 75 percent on-time rate, leave just before noon. If you have to fly in the evening, try United Flight 95 out of Newark just after 6 p.m. This flight still gets delayed 38 percent of the time, but its performance is much better than the other evening routes.

Best: Continental Flight 248, at 11:15 a.m. out of Newark, lands on time an impressive 92 percent of the time, but American Flight 15 out of JFK leaves at about the same time, only misses a bit more often, and flies the newer and more comfortable Boeing 762s. On the return, take Continental Flight 349, at 7 a.m. (85 percent on time) or American Flight 20, at 3:30 p.m. (69 percent on time).

Worst: Avoid American’s late flights from JFK. Flight 177 misses 52 percent of the time, and Flight 17 is delayed 68 percent of the time.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IAD) (DCA)
The timetable for flights between New York and D.C. has so many options it looks like a bus schedule, with hourly departures between any pairing of the two regions’ major airports. But as with Boston, the shuttles are your best bet. Always try to fly into Reagan National. It has the best on-time record of the D.C. airports, and the Metro is so well integrated that you can practically disembark directly from the plane onto the subway platform. As usual, the morning shuttles (US Airways Flight 2163, at 7 a.m., Delta Flight 1941, at 6:30 a.m.) are the least delayed, but failing that, take Delta Shuttle 6503, at 9:30 p.m.—after the commuter rush.

Best: Delta Shuttle Flight 1941, at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday mornings, a route that runs 100 percent on time and had zero cancellations this fall. On the return, Delta’s 9:30 a.m. shuttle from National to La Guardia has an 82 percent on-time record and takes just over an hour, which means you can still get to the office by 11 a.m.

Worst: JetBlue Flight 1315, at 9:55 p.m. from JFK to Dulles. It’s delayed 57 percent of the time, and it’s been canceled seven times in the last three months.

*On-time rates from FlightStats.com.