Route reliability record
CHS→LGA
Charleston to New York
- Flights
- 1,440
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 641 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 1,440 CHS to LGA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,037 at 78.7% on time.
Best time to fly CHS to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.9% of the time and Friday flights 79.6%, against 74.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,359 completed flights
Avg delay
106 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.21%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
78.7% on time across 1,037 flights
These figures cover 1,440 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% 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 airline is most reliable on CHS to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 78.7% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 64.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 403 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,037 | 78.7% | 82 min | 5.59% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 403 | 64.8% | 144 min | 4.22% | D− |
Republic Airways cancels 5.6% 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charleston to New York
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CHS → EWRCharleston to Newark | United Airlines | 81.7% | 83.4% | 1.99% | 5am–8am, Sat | UA 674 11:20 |
| 2. CHS → LGACharleston to New York | Republic Airways | 74.3% | 78.7% | 5.59% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. CHS → JFKCharleston to New York | JetBlue Airways | 69.8% | 72.8% | 4.11% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 2474 11:00 |
| 4. CHS → LGACharleston to New York | Delta Air Lines | 62.1% | 64.8% | 4.22% | 11am–2pm, Fri | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am291 flights86.9%
- 8am–11am71 flights81.2%
- 11am–2pm375 flights78.2%
- 2pm–5pm268 flights61.0%
- 5pm–8pm434 flights70.8%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.9% of the time, against 61.0% for the afternoon window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 434 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
July is the worst month at 53.1% on time, 30 points below September, the best at 82.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. November was the busiest month here, with 142 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 79.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.4%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route 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 36,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 15,000 of the 36,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 36,383 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 86.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.21%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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.
The 641 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 73.4% on time across 1,441 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,440 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.21% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 1,359 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CHS to LGA questions
How often is CHS to LGA delayed?
About 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 25.2% of the 1,440 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CHS to LGA?
Republic Airways leads at 78.7% on time across 1,037 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 64.8%, 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 CHS to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 61.0%, 26 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 July delays on CHS to LGA?
July is the weakest month at 53.1% on time, compared with 82.9% in September. Across the year that is 30 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 CHS — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on CHS to LGA78.7%
- Delta Air Lines on CHS to LGA64.8%
- CHS to ATL, a related route90.2%
- ORD to LGA, a related route67.3%
- CHS to CLT, a related route83.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record64.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. CHS to LGA and LGA to CHS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.