Route reliability record
DAL→LGA
Dallas to New York
- Flights
- 1,557
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,381 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, a little over half of flights arrive on time, worth a D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,557 DAL to LGA flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes late.
Best time to fly DAL to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 70.2%, against 59.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 18 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 175 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
59.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,474 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.34%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
59.8% on time across 1,557 flights
These figures cover 1,557 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DAL to LGA
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,557 | 59.8% | 64 min | 3.34% | D− |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas 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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → JFKDallas-Fort Worth to New York | Delta Air Lines | 84.4% | 89.9% | 6.17% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 454 08:00 |
| 2. DFW → EWRDallas-Fort Worth to Newark | United Airlines | 76.1% | 78.3% | 2.83% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 1847 07:00 |
| 3. DFW → LGADallas-Fort Worth to New York | Delta Air Lines | 68.7% | 72.5% | 5.24% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 869 16:50 |
| 4. DFW → JFKDallas-Fort Worth to New York | American Airlines | 67.6% | 69.4% | 2.66% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1766 09:53 |
| 5. DFW → EWRDallas-Fort Worth to Newark | American Airlines | 63.5% | 66.2% | 4.03% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 51 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am339 flights84.6%
- 8am–11am326 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm365 flights50.0%
- 2pm–5pm162 flights33.1%
- 5pm–8pm365 flights40.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 25% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.6% of the time, against 33.1% for the afternoon window. That is 51 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DAL to LGA 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 DAL to LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 33.1%, a wide gap of 51.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.6%
- 8–11am78.7%
- 11am–2pm50.0%
- 2–5pm33.1%
- 5–8pm40.2%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 25% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 44 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 83.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 145 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 70.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 49.8%, a spread of 20 points.
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 38,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 30%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 15,000 minutes out of 38,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 37,726 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.34%, 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
14.1% 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.
The 1,381 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.7% on time across 1,558 flights, 13 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 13 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,557 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 3.34% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 1,474 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DAL to LGA questions
How often is DAL to LGA delayed?
Roughly one flight in two arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 40.2% of the 1,557 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DAL to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
59.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 18 points against it. That is worth a D− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DAL to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 33.1%, 51 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 March delays on DAL to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 40.0% on time, compared with 83.5% in September. Across the year that is 44 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 DAL — the return legseparate record
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.8%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DAL to ATL, a related route78.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record59.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DAL to LGA and LGA to DAL 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.