New York, NY · departure reliability
LGA
LaGuardia
- Departures
- 136,747
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Carriers
- 9
- US rank
- #14 by volume
New York
LaGuardia carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 136,747 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 56,419 at 74.4% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 74.4% on time across 56,419 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.6%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
4.60%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Republic
74.4% on time here
These figures cover 137,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 74.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 60.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,409 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 56,419 | 74.4% | 69 min | 5.62% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 29,677 | 73.9% | 79 min | 3.80% | C− |
| American Airlines | 16,663 | 70.7% | 93 min | 4.07% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 11,705 | 69.8% | 71 min | 3.46% | C− |
| United Airlines | 9,051 | 71.8% | 85 min | 2.74% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 5,298 | 72.9% | 84 min | 6.02% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 4,482 | 65.7% | 82 min | 3.57% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 2,409 | 60.6% | 111 min | 5.60% | D− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,043 | 69.3% | 101 min | 5.18% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 6.0% 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 LGA
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from LGA, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 72.6%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LGA to ORD · Chicago | 11,633 | 67.2% | 89 min | 4.74% | C− |
| LGA to ATL · Atlanta | 8,276 | 75.5% | 80 min | 3.56% | B− |
| LGA to BOS · Boston | 7,148 | 73.3% | 71 min | 5.27% | C− |
| LGA to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 6,852 | 70.2% | 87 min | 4.70% | C− |
| LGA to MIA · Miami | 6,031 | 69.7% | 89 min | 4.18% | C− |
| LGA to MCO · Orlando | 5,302 | 69.3% | 78 min | 3.89% | C− |
| LGA to DCA · Washington | 4,816 | 67.9% | 64 min | 5.67% | C− |
| LGA to DEN · Denver | 4,672 | 70.9% | 71 min | 3.04% | C− |
| LGA to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 4,610 | 68.0% | 78 min | 4.47% | C− |
| LGA to CLT · Charlotte | 4,395 | 77.1% | 97 min | 3.89% | B− |
| LGA to IAH · Houston | 4,081 | 75.9% | 87 min | 2.70% | B |
| LGA to DTW · Detroit | 4,060 | 77.6% | 83 min | 4.95% | B− |
| LGA to BNA · Nashville | 3,843 | 71.0% | 70 min | 4.68% | C− |
| LGA to PBI · West Palm Beach | 3,164 | 68.6% | 78 min | 4.33% | C− |
| LGA to CMH · Columbus | 3,100 | 76.4% | 77 min | 4.65% | B− |
| LGA to PIT · Pittsburgh | 3,006 | 77.6% | 78 min | 4.59% | B− |
| LGA to TPA · Tampa | 2,876 | 69.8% | 83 min | 3.16% | C− |
| LGA to RDU · Raleigh | 2,799 | 71.6% | 71 min | 5.82% | C− |
| LGA to STL · St. Louis | 2,659 | 75.1% | 73 min | 4.21% | B− |
| LGA to IND · Indianapolis | 2,493 | 75.4% | 78 min | 5.42% | B− |
| LGA to MDW · Chicago | 2,368 | 72.2% | 71 min | 4.48% | C− |
| LGA to RIC · Richmond | 2,262 | 75.1% | 66 min | 6.23% | B− |
| LGA to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,927 | 82.2% | 85 min | 2.70% | B |
| LGA to BUF · Buffalo | 1,899 | 74.3% | 68 min | 6.32% | C− |
| LGA to GSO · Greensboro | 1,861 | 74.9% | 68 min | 6.13% | C− |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave LGA
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am19,295 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am26,057 flights81.8%
- 11am–2pm23,738 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm27,883 flights65.4%
- 5pm–8pm24,230 flights60.3%
- 8pm–5am15,544 flights63.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.3% on time, against 88.1% 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.
Across the year
When LGA runs late
LGA's year swings by 20 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 62.2% on time, against 82.4% in September. 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.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.1%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why LGA 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 2.78 million reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 2.78 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
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 88.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.60%, against 1.80% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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.
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
136,747 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 LGA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.60% 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.
Common questions
LGA delay questions
How often is New York (LGA) delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.4% of the 136,747 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on New York (LGA)?
Republic Airways leads at 74.4% on time across 56,419 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 60.6%, a gap of 14 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 New York (LGA)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.3%, 28 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 New York (LGA)?
December is the weakest month at 62.2% 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
- LGA to ORD — Chicago67.2%
- LGA to ATL — Atlanta75.5%
- LGA to BOS — Boston73.3%
- LGA to DFW — Dallas-Fort Worth70.2%
- LGA to MIA — Miami69.7%
- LGA to MCO — Orlando69.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record73.9%
- American Airlines on-time record70.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record69.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.