Route reliability record
DEN→LGA
Denver to New York
- Flights
- 4,664
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,620 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,664 DEN to LGA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,033 at 79.7% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.2% of the time and Saturday flights 78.9%, against 71.3% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 79.7% on time across 1,033 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,460 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.92%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
79.7% on time across 1,033 flights
These figures cover 4,664 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% 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 DEN to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 79.7% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 63.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,517 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,033 | 79.7% | 83 min | 4.84% | B− |
| United Airlines | 2,021 | 73.5% | 74 min | 1.78% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 93 | 65.6% | 93 min | 3.23% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,517 | 63.0% | 59 min | 3.10% | D− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 4.8% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to LGA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver 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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → JFKDenver to New York | Delta Air Lines | 85.6% | 87.7% | 2.45% | 8pm–5am, Fri | DL 336 06:40 |
| 2. DEN → EWRDenver to Newark | United Airlines | 77.6% | 78.8% | 1.53% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2345 06:00 |
| 3. DEN → LGADenver to New York | Delta Air Lines | 75.8% | 79.7% | 4.84% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 398 07:10 |
| 4. DEN → LGADenver to New York | United Airlines | 72.2% | 73.5% | 1.78% | 8am–11am, Sat | UA 1442 08:15 |
| 5. DEN → JFKDenver to New York | JetBlue Airways | 63.2% | 67.3% | 6.06% | 11am–2pm, Tue | B6 98 23:59 |
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 29 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am635 flights89.2%
- 8am–11am1,113 flights79.3%
- 11am–2pm914 flights71.3%
- 2pm–5pm1,035 flights61.1%
- 5pm–8pm967 flights60.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.6% on time, against 89.2% 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. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,113 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN 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 DEN to LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.6%, a wide gap of 28.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.2%
- 8–11am79.3%
- 11am–2pm71.3%
- 2–5pm61.1%
- 5–8pm60.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 60.1%. January is the strongest month at 82.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 22 points. July was the busiest month here, with 404 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 66.2%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 89,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 27%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 41,000 minutes out of 89,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 89,133 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.92%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
11.1% 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.
At 1,620 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 70.0% on time across 4,663 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 4,664 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 2.92% 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. 4,460 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to LGA questions
How often is DEN to LGA delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.7% of the 4,664 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to LGA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 79.7% on time across 1,033 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 63.0%, a gap of 17 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 DEN to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.6%, 29 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 DEN to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 60.1% on time, compared with 82.0% in January. Across the year that is 22 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 DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DEN to LGA79.7%
- United Airlines on DEN to LGA73.5%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to LGA63.0%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.7%
- United Airlines on-time record73.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record65.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DEN to LGA and LGA to DEN 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.