Carrier route record
YXDTW→LGA
Republic Airways · Detroit to New York
- Flights
- 1,033
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 26%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on DTW to LGA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.8% 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 B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,033 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,979 at 77.3% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Republic on DTW to LGA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 970 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.81%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.4%
Every carrier on DTW to LGA, 4,011 flights
These figures cover 1,033 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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
Republic against every carrier on DTW to LGA
Republic flew 1,033 of the 4,011 flights on DTW to LGA, about 26% of it. Its 77.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 77.3% to Spirit at 69.6%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 77.3% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 69.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 999 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,979 | 77.3% | 69 min | 3.49% | B− |
| Republic Airways (this page) | 1,033 | 77.0% | 82 min | 5.81% | B− |
| Spirit Airlines | 999 | 69.6% | 77 min | 7.61% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 7.6% 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.
Flight by flight
Republic flight numbers on DTW to LGA
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 23 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am290 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am130 flights86.8%
- 11am–2pm290 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm26 flights—
- 5pm–8pm297 flights63.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.5% on time, against 86.8% for the 8am–11am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 297 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on DTW to LGA through the year
December is the weak month at 66.7% on time, against 86.9% in April. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 112 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 73.2%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
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 18,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
37% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 split is drawn from 18,384 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.81%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in fifteen 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.0% 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 502 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 74.9% on time across 1,033 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,033 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Republic on DTW to LGA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.81% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 970 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to LGA, every carrier
- Republic on LGA to DTW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to LGA77.3%
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to LGA69.6%
- Republic Airways network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.