Route reliability record
GRR→EWR
Grand Rapids to Newark
- Flights
- 889
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 605 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 889 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 Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.5% of the time and Thursday flights 82.7%, against 78.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
78.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 842 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
78.7% on time across 869 flights
These figures cover 889 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 18 | 83.3% | 43 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 869 | 78.7% | 74 min | 4.72% | B− |
| 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 → LGAGrand Rapids to New York | Republic Airways | 76.7% | 81.0% | 5.25% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. GRR → EWRGrand Rapids to Newark | Republic Airways | 75.0% | 78.7% | 4.72% | 5am–8am, Thu (route) | YX 3718 06:00 |
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 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am363 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am18 flights—
- 11am–2pm336 flights72.7%
- 2pm–5pm100 flights72.7%
- 5pm–8pm72 flights63.6%
- 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: 63.6% on time, against 88.5% 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 363 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter GRR to EWR 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 GRR to EWR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 63.6%, a wide gap of 24.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.5%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm72.7%
- 2–5pm72.7%
- 5–8pm63.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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. July was the busiest month here, with 101 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 82.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.4%, a spread of 9 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 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 36 to one. The split is drawn from 13,156 reported delay minutes.
40% 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 5,301 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.61%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
9.4% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.0% on time across 890 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 889 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 4.61% 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. 842 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GRR to EWR questions
How often is GRR to EWR delayed?
About 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 21.3% of the 889 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
78.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about 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 88.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.6%, 25 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 route69.1%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- GRR to DTW, a related route79.6%
- Allegiant Air on-time record83.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.7%
- United Airlines on-time record50.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.