Route reliability record
GRR→EWR
Grand Rapids to Newark
- Flights
- 837
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 605 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about 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 837 GRR to EWR flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly GRR to EWR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.7%, against 78.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 804 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
78.6% on time across 819 flights
These figures cover 837 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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
Which airline is most reliable on GRR to EWR
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 | 819 | 78.6% | 73 min | 3.42% | B− |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 16 | 62.5% | 102 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 75 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on GRR to EWR
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 Grand Rapids to Newark
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. GRR → EWRGrand Rapids to Newark | Republic Airways | 75.9% | 78.6% | 3.42% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | YX 3718 06:00 |
| 2. GRR → LGAGrand Rapids to New York | Republic Airways | 75.7% | 79.6% | 4.87% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am364 flights88.0%
- 8am–11am16 flights—
- 11am–2pm311 flights71.2%
- 2pm–5pm77 flights75.7%
- 5pm–8pm69 flights64.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.7% on time, against 88.0% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
December is the weak month at 62.7% on time, against 91.7% in May. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 94 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.0%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 48% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 48%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
48% 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 6,208 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 13,002 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 88.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.35%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.5% 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 605 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 83.2% on time across 837 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 837 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 EWR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.35% 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. 804 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GRR to EWR questions
How often is GRR to EWR delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.8% of the 837 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is GRR to EWR compared with the rest of the country?
78.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on GRR to EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.7%, 23 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 December delays on GRR to EWR?
December is the weakest month at 62.7% on time, compared with 91.7% in May. Across the year that is 29 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
- EWR to GRR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- GRR to ORD, a related route68.3%
- MCO to EWR, a related route73.8%
- GRR to DTW, a related route78.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.6%
- Allegiant Air on-time record62.5%
- United Airlines on-time record50.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. GRR to EWR and EWR to GRR 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.