Route reliability record
EWR→MKE
Newark to Milwaukee
- Flights
- 850
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 725 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five 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 850 EWR to MKE flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly EWR to MKE: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.7%, against 83.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 55 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 801 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
83.1% on time across 850 flights
These figures cover 850 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on EWR to MKE
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 850 | 83.1% | 62 min | 5.29% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on EWR to MKE
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Newark to Milwaukee
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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → MKENewark to Milwaukee | Republic Airways | 78.7% | 83.1% | 5.29% | 8am–11am, Tue | YX 3697 09:00 |
| 2. LGA → MKENew York to Milwaukee | Republic Airways | 77.9% | 83.1% | 6.30% | 8am–11am, 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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 850 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am351 flights87.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm342 flights79.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am157 flights79.6%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.8% of the time, against 79.6% for the overnight window. That is 8 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 351 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 69.9% on time, 28 points below April, the best at 98.3%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.2%. 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 8,297 reported delay minutes.
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 18%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 18% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 8,297 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 87.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.29%, 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
5.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 725 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.7% on time across 849 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 850 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MKE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.29% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; 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. 801 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to MKE questions
How often is EWR to MKE delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.9% of the 850 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is EWR to MKE compared with the rest of the country?
83.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on EWR to MKE?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 79.6%, 8 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 EWR to MKE?
July is the weakest month at 69.9% on time, compared with 98.3% in April. Across the year that is 28 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
- MKE to EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.1%
- ORD to MKE, a related route64.1%
- EWR to ATL, a related route77.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record83.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. EWR to MKE and MKE to EWR 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.