Pittsburgh, PA · departure reliability

PIT

Pittsburgh International

Departures: 42,906
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Carriers: 12
US rank: #44 by volume

Terminal building and aircraft stands at a US airport

Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh International lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 42,906 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,309 at 88.0% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the twelve carriers covered here at 88.0% on time across 3,309 flights.

On time

81.4%

Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination

Avg delay

75 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.92%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Delta

88.0% on time here

These figures cover 43,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

Which airlines run best out of PIT

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 88.0% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 67.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 713 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier departing PIT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways	11,605	84.1%	66 min	2.90%	B
Southwest Airlines	10,332	80.6%	59 min	0.69%	B+
American Airlines	5,891	79.7%	101 min	1.68%	B
United Airlines	4,060	82.8%	78 min	0.94%	B+
Delta Air Lines	3,309	88.0%	66 min	1.99%	A
JetBlue Airways	1,702	79.5%	86 min	3.76%	B−
Allegiant Air	1,634	79.5%	97 min	0.86%	B+
SkyWest Airlines	1,219	74.7%	111 min	1.80%	C
Spirit Airlines	1,219	79.6%	75 min	3.69%	B−
PSA Airlines	713	67.3%	86 min	6.31%	C−
Alaska Airlines	471	71.1%	55 min	1.27%	C
Envoy Air	469	69.7%	67 min	2.77%	C

PSA Airlines cancels 6.3% 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 PIT

Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from PIT, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 81.4%.

Busiest routes from PIT by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PIT to ORD · Chicago	3,950	78.6%	94 min	2.00%	B
PIT to LGA · New York	3,011	80.9%	76 min	5.01%	B−
PIT to ATL · Atlanta	2,777	90.3%	66 min	2.12%	A
PIT to MCO · Orlando	2,184	79.7%	67 min	1.24%	B
PIT to BOS · Boston	2,151	79.3%	74 min	2.84%	B
PIT to CLT · Charlotte	1,933	83.9%	82 min	1.66%	B
PIT to EWR · Newark	1,836	86.8%	67 min	3.65%	A−
PIT to JFK · New York	1,764	87.0%	78 min	3.46%	A−
PIT to DEN · Denver	1,698	81.6%	63 min	0.71%	B+
PIT to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	1,509	79.4%	112 min	1.99%	B
PIT to DCA · Washington	1,431	69.0%	66 min	3.42%	C−
PIT to IAD · Washington	1,266	88.3%	59 min	1.42%	A
PIT to PHL · Philadelphia	1,226	77.2%	92 min	2.53%	B
PIT to MDW · Chicago	1,134	78.8%	61 min	0.97%	B+
PIT to FLL · Fort Lauderdale	1,105	79.9%	68 min	2.81%	B
PIT to BNA · Nashville	1,096	83.6%	59 min	0.55%	B+
PIT to BWI · Baltimore	1,075	85.5%	60 min	1.30%	A
PIT to DTW · Detroit	1,007	80.3%	96 min	0.99%	B+
PIT to TPA · Tampa	828	79.8%	74 min	0.12%	B+
PIT to PHX · Phoenix	811	78.4%	72 min	0.62%	B+
PIT to LAS · Las Vegas	758	82.5%	52 min	0.40%	B+
PIT to IAH · Houston	738	83.8%	66 min	0.14%	B+
PIT to RDU · Raleigh	715	85.4%	56 min	1.12%	A
PIT to MIA · Miami	712	79.9%	82 min	1.26%	B
PIT to MSP · Minneapolis	632	81.3%	95 min	0.63%	B+

Departure window

The best time of day to leave PIT

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 24 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am11,913 flights91.2%
8am–11am7,655 flights87.8%
11am–2pm6,400 flights83.0%
2pm–5pm6,243 flights74.4%
5pm–8pm8,854 flights69.3%
8pm–5am1,841 flights67.3%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.2% of the time, against 67.3% for the overnight window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 11,913 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When PIT runs late

PIT's year swings by 13 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, December worst

December is the weak month at 73.2% on time, against 86.2% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 3,959 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.7%. 6 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why PIT 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 588,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
30%
Carrier
28%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

36% 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 588,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 split is drawn from 588,147 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 91.2% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.92% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.

6.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

42,906 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 PIT

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.2% on time and December 73.2%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 41,993 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

PIT delay questions

How often is Pittsburgh (PIT) delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.6% of the 42,906 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on Pittsburgh (PIT)?

Delta Air Lines leads at 88.0% on time across 3,309 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 67.3%, a gap of 21 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 Pittsburgh (PIT)?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.3%, 24 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 Pittsburgh (PIT)?

December is the weakest month at 73.2% on time, compared with 86.2% in September. Across the year that is 13 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures