Pittsburgh, PA · departure reliability
PIT
Pittsburgh International
- Departures
- 42,927
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Carriers
- 12
- US rank
- #44 by volume
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh International lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. 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 42,927 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,330 at 87.7% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the twelve carriers covered here at 87.7% on time across 3,330 flights.
Key figures
On time
81.1%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.91%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Delta
87.7% on time here
These figures cover 43,000 flights between June 2025 and May 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 87.7% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 65.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 655 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 11,503 | 83.8% | 66 min | 2.91% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 10,300 | 80.6% | 59 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 5,894 | 79.4% | 97 min | 1.75% | B |
| United Airlines | 3,967 | 83.0% | 76 min | 0.91% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,330 | 87.7% | 64 min | 2.10% | A |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,672 | 78.6% | 87 min | 3.35% | B− |
| Allegiant Air | 1,642 | 78.8% | 96 min | 0.73% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,348 | 80.0% | 74 min | 3.34% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,291 | 73.4% | 114 min | 2.01% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 655 | 65.4% | 84 min | 6.26% | C− |
| Envoy Air | 553 | 72.7% | 67 min | 2.53% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 471 | 68.8% | 55 min | 1.27% | 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 81.1%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PIT to ORD · Chicago | 3,912 | 78.2% | 91 min | 1.81% | B |
| PIT to LGA · New York | 3,005 | 80.0% | 77 min | 5.22% | B− |
| PIT to ATL · Atlanta | 2,800 | 89.9% | 66 min | 2.18% | A |
| PIT to MCO · Orlando | 2,160 | 79.3% | 66 min | 1.34% | B |
| PIT to BOS · Boston | 2,140 | 78.8% | 75 min | 2.34% | B |
| PIT to CLT · Charlotte | 1,905 | 83.9% | 81 min | 1.89% | B |
| PIT to EWR · Newark | 1,868 | 87.2% | 64 min | 3.48% | A− |
| PIT to JFK · New York | 1,763 | 86.9% | 77 min | 3.57% | A− |
| PIT to DEN · Denver | 1,729 | 81.2% | 64 min | 0.69% | B+ |
| PIT to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 1,508 | 79.0% | 113 min | 1.92% | B |
| PIT to DCA · Washington | 1,418 | 69.1% | 64 min | 3.17% | C− |
| PIT to IAD · Washington | 1,279 | 88.2% | 59 min | 1.33% | A |
| PIT to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,259 | 75.4% | 86 min | 2.78% | B |
| PIT to MDW · Chicago | 1,150 | 79.5% | 59 min | 0.87% | B+ |
| PIT to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,103 | 79.5% | 68 min | 2.81% | B |
| PIT to BNA · Nashville | 1,095 | 83.1% | 66 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| PIT to BWI · Baltimore | 1,074 | 85.1% | 61 min | 1.30% | A |
| PIT to DTW · Detroit | 1,037 | 79.7% | 101 min | 1.06% | B |
| PIT to TPA · Tampa | 836 | 79.5% | 73 min | 0.12% | B+ |
| PIT to PHX · Phoenix | 812 | 79.2% | 74 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| PIT to LAS · Las Vegas | 796 | 82.2% | 49 min | 0.38% | B+ |
| PIT to MIA · Miami | 711 | 80.0% | 73 min | 1.69% | B |
| PIT to RDU · Raleigh | 710 | 84.7% | 56 min | 1.13% | B |
| PIT to IAH · Houston | 705 | 83.9% | 69 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| PIT to MSP · Minneapolis | 616 | 80.8% | 88 min | 0.81% | 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 25 points, against 22 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am12,002 flights91.3%
- 8am–11am7,621 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm6,316 flights83.4%
- 2pm–5pm6,298 flights73.8%
- 5pm–8pm8,924 flights68.4%
- 8pm–5am1,766 flights66.3%
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 91.3% of the time, against 66.3% for the overnight window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
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.
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.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.6%. 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 595,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%National Airspace System
- 28%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 595,000 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 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 91.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.91% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
7.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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.
42,927 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.
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 18.9% of the 42,927 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 Pittsburgh (PIT)?
Delta Air Lines leads at 87.7% on time across 3,330 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 65.4%, a gap of 22 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 91.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.3%, 25 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.
Related
Where to go next
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.