Newark, NJ · departure reliability
EWR
Newark Liberty International
- Departures
- 122,267
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Carriers
- 10
- US rank
- #15 by volume
Newark
Newark Liberty International carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 122,267 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 24,470 at 83.5% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the ten carriers covered here at 83.5% on time across 24,470 flights.
Key figures
On time
77.4%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
3.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
83.5% on time here
These figures cover 122,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of EWR
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 83.5% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 68.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 5,960 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 68,308 | 76.3% | 77 min | 2.30% | B |
| Republic Airways | 24,470 | 83.5% | 71 min | 5.49% | B− |
| American Airlines | 6,626 | 79.7% | 105 min | 3.68% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 6,613 | 79.0% | 101 min | 3.92% | B− |
| Spirit Airlines | 5,960 | 68.1% | 80 min | 7.27% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 4,976 | 73.9% | 77 min | 3.82% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,985 | 73.7% | 70 min | 2.45% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,240 | 70.9% | 112 min | 3.79% | C− |
| Allegiant Air | 547 | 80.1% | 84 min | 1.65% | B |
| Envoy Air | 533 | 72.2% | 84 min | 6.19% | C− |
Spirit 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
Busiest routes out of EWR
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from EWR, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 77.4%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EWR to MCO · Orlando | 6,391 | 77.9% | 80 min | 3.21% | B− |
| EWR to ATL · Atlanta | 6,252 | 76.9% | 89 min | 3.85% | B− |
| EWR to ORD · Chicago | 6,123 | 70.7% | 85 min | 3.90% | C− |
| EWR to LAX · Los Angeles | 4,750 | 70.7% | 82 min | 2.46% | C |
| EWR to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 4,671 | 75.3% | 75 min | 4.02% | B− |
| EWR to SFO · San Francisco | 4,349 | 67.9% | 88 min | 2.30% | C |
| EWR to MIA · Miami | 3,914 | 77.5% | 82 min | 2.96% | B |
| EWR to BOS · Boston | 3,860 | 72.2% | 76 min | 4.25% | C− |
| EWR to IAH · Houston | 3,714 | 80.2% | 78 min | 1.97% | B |
| EWR to CLT · Charlotte | 3,688 | 80.4% | 96 min | 3.74% | B− |
| EWR to DTW · Detroit | 3,660 | 79.9% | 88 min | 5.63% | B− |
| EWR to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 3,631 | 78.6% | 93 min | 3.36% | B− |
| EWR to PBI · West Palm Beach | 3,395 | 77.5% | 66 min | 2.80% | B |
| EWR to DEN · Denver | 3,349 | 77.6% | 84 min | 1.46% | B |
| EWR to LAS · Las Vegas | 2,863 | 80.0% | 74 min | 1.82% | B |
| EWR to TPA · Tampa | 2,503 | 80.9% | 72 min | 2.16% | B |
| EWR to PHX · Phoenix | 2,485 | 78.9% | 81 min | 2.37% | B |
| EWR to SEA · Seattle | 2,263 | 72.9% | 71 min | 2.39% | C |
| EWR to MSP · Minneapolis | 2,226 | 79.3% | 97 min | 4.58% | B− |
| EWR to IND · Indianapolis | 2,204 | 81.7% | 80 min | 4.36% | B− |
| EWR to CLE · Cleveland | 2,163 | 80.1% | 83 min | 3.74% | B− |
| EWR to CMH · Columbus | 2,087 | 83.8% | 90 min | 5.17% | B− |
| EWR to SJU · San Juan | 2,078 | 69.9% | 81 min | 3.03% | C− |
| EWR to AUS · Austin | 2,056 | 78.4% | 76 min | 3.11% | B− |
| EWR to RDU · Raleigh | 1,994 | 75.7% | 76 min | 3.41% | B− |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave EWR
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am19,946 flights87.6%
- 8am–11am23,475 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm17,657 flights79.6%
- 2pm–5pm22,215 flights74.8%
- 5pm–8pm22,930 flights70.7%
- 8pm–5am16,044 flights69.4%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.6% of the time, against 69.4% for the overnight window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 23,475 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter EWR departures by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On departures from Newark (EWR), the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 69.4%, a wide gap of 18.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.6%
- 8–11am81.4%
- 11am–2pm79.6%
- 2–5pm74.8%
- 5–8pm70.7%
- 8pm–5am69.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When EWR runs late
EWR's year swings by 16 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 70.5% on time, against 86.4% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 10,755 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.5%, a spread of 10 points.
EWR month by month
From Europe
Transatlantic routes into EWR
38 European airports send scheduled passenger flights to EWR, 36,672 flights a year in both directions by the DOT's international count. The DOT keeps no delay record for international flights; the UK routes carry the CAA's departure punctuality, and every route sets its departure airport's EUROCONTROL figures beside EWR's own record above.
- LHR to EWR · London6,322 flights
- CDG to EWR · Paris2,140 flights
- LIS to EWR · Lisbon2,069 flights
- DUB to EWR · Dublin1,996 flights
- FRA to EWR · Frankfurt1,642 flights
- OPO to EWR · Porto1,480 flights
- ZRH to EWR · Zurich1,427 flights
- MUC to EWR · Munich1,417 flights
- MXP to EWR · Milan1,236 flights
- ATH to EWR · Athens1,218 flights
- FCO to EWR · Rome1,213 flights
- ORY to EWR · Paris1,109 flights
Delay causes
Why EWR gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 2.10 million reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 27%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 2.10 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 2,104,552 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.44%, 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.
9.1% 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.
122,267 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
What to do with this
Flying out of EWR
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.44% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 117,763 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR delay questions
How often is Newark (EWR) delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.6% of the 122,267 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Newark (EWR)?
Republic Airways leads at 83.5% on time across 24,470 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 68.1%, a gap of 15 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 Newark (EWR)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 69.4%, 18 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 December delays on Newark (EWR)?
December is the weakest month at 70.5% on time, compared with 86.4% in May. Across the year that is 16 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
- EWR to MCO — Orlando77.9%
- EWR to ATL — Atlanta76.9%
- EWR to ORD — Chicago70.7%
- EWR to LAX — Los Angeles70.7%
- EWR to FLL — Fort Lauderdale75.3%
- EWR to SFO — San Francisco67.9%
- United Airlines on-time record76.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record83.5%
- American Airlines on-time record79.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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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.