Route reliability record
DFW→LGA
Dallas-Fort Worth to New York
- Flights
- 6,650
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,389 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 6,650 DFW to LGA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,851 at 72.5% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 72.8%, against 66.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 112 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,239 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.07%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
72.5% on time across 1,851 flights
These figures cover 6,650 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.7% 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 DFW to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 72.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 64.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 4,311 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,851 | 72.5% | 92 min | 5.24% | C− |
| American Airlines | 4,311 | 64.0% | 70 min | 4.80% | D− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 196 | 63.2% | 81 min | 7.14% | D− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 292 | 58.7% | 77 min | 6.51% | D− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 5.2% 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 DFW 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 Dallas-Fort Worth 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. 4 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 26 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,093 flights83.2%
- 8am–11am1,222 flights71.7%
- 11am–2pm1,441 flights65.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,584 flights57.4%
- 5pm–8pm1,310 flights58.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.2% of the time, against 57.4% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,584 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW 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 DFW to LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 83.2% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 57.4%, a wide gap of 25.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am83.2%
- 8–11am71.7%
- 11am–2pm65.1%
- 2–5pm57.4%
- 5–8pm58.0%
- 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 25 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 79.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 614 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 72.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.4%, a spread of 14 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 160,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 29%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 160,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 160,056 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 83.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.07%, against 1.89% 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
13.7% 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 1,389 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 70.1% on time across 6,646 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,650 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 5.07% 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. 6,239 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to LGA questions
How often is DFW to LGA delayed?
About 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 33.9% of the 6,650 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 DFW to LGA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 72.5% on time across 1,851 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 64.0%, a gap of 9 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 DFW to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 57.4%, 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 March delays on DFW to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 54.2% on time, compared with 79.1% in September. Across the year that is 25 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 DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DFW to LGA72.5%
- American Airlines on DFW to LGA64.0%
- Spirit Airlines on DFW to LGA63.2%
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to LGA58.7%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.5%
- American Airlines on-time record64.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record63.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DFW to LGA and LGA to DFW 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.