Carrier performance at one airport
UA→LGA
United Airlines at LaGuardia
- Departures
- 9,068
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 3
- Rank here
- #3 of 9
United Airlines at New York sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 9,068 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 56,427 at 74.2% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, United Airlines runs about a point behind the 72.4% weighted average across all carriers at LGA. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
8,754 completed departures
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
3.11%
At LGA, this carrier only
Rank here
#3
Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at LGA
These figures cover 9,068 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Against the competition
Every carrier at LGA, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 74.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 57.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,324 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 56,427 | 74.2% | 69 min | 6.00% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 29,531 | 74.0% | 78 min | 4.28% | C− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 9,068 | 71.4% | 88 min | 3.11% | C− |
| American Airlines | 17,147 | 71.1% | 92 min | 4.16% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,953 | 70.8% | 80 min | 6.96% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 11,715 | 68.7% | 67 min | 4.30% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 630 | 66.4% | 89 min | 4.44% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 4,458 | 66.4% | 79 min | 4.46% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 2,324 | 57.3% | 112 min | 7.31% | D− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 7.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where United Airlines flies from LGA
United Airlines operates 3 routes out of LGA with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LGA to ORD · Chicago | 4,671 | 65.4% | 90 min | 4.24% | C− |
| LGA to IAH · Houston | 2,376 | 77.4% | 88 min | 1.77% | B |
| LGA to DEN · Denver | 2,021 | 77.6% | 80 min | 2.08% | B |
Flight by flight
United Airlines flight numbers from LGA
8 United Airlines flight numbers leaving LGA flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,589 flights87.5%
- 8am–11am1,657 flights83.1%
- 11am–2pm1,273 flights78.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,924 flights64.0%
- 5pm–8pm1,821 flights53.7%
- 8pm–5am804 flights60.0%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.7% on time, against 87.5% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,924 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
September is the best month on the calendar at 82.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 850 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%National Airspace System
- 16%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 221,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 220,539 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.11%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
12.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The sample behind these figures is 9,068 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.11% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 8,754 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
United Airlines at LGA
How often is United Airlines at LGA delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.6% of the 9,068 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on United Airlines at LGA?
Republic Airways leads at 74.2% on time across 56,427 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 57.3%, a gap of 17 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on United Airlines at LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.7%, 34 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are October delays on United Airlines at LGA?
October is the weakest month at 62.8% on time, compared with 82.4% in September. Across the year that is 20 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.