Route reliability record
IAD→LGA
Washington to New York
- Flights
- 911
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 228 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 911 IAD to LGA flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAD to LGA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.0% of the time and Saturday flights 85.5%, against 73.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 42 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 847 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.92%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
73.1% on time across 911 flights
These figures cover 911 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 IAD to LGA
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 | 911 | 73.1% | 72 min | 6.92% | C− |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington 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. DCA → JFKWashington to New York | JetBlue Airways | 76.4% | 81.3% | 6.07% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. BWI → ISPBaltimore to Islip | Southwest Airlines | 76.3% | 77.8% | 1.90% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. IAD → EWRWashington to Newark | United Airlines | 75.1% | 77.1% | 2.61% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | UA 2669 06:00 |
| 4. DCA → JFKWashington to New York | Republic Airways | 71.5% | 76.0% | 5.98% | 5am–8am, Wed | YX 5713 17:00 |
| 5. IAD → LGAWashington to New York | Republic Airways | 68.0% | 73.1% | 6.92% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am99 flights86.0%
- 11am–2pm313 flights68.4%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm213 flights71.6%
- 8pm–5am286 flights74.9%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 68.4% on time against 86.0% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 313 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAD 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 IAD to LGA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 86.0% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 68.4%, a wide gap of 17.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am86.0%
- 11am–2pm68.4%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm71.6%
- 8pm–5am74.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
June is the worst month at 59.6% on time, 27 points below January, the best at 86.7%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 111 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 66.4%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 59% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
59% 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 9,657 minutes out of 16,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 16,423 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 6.92%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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 actually costs
10.4% 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.
At 228 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.1% on time across 912 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 911 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.92% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 847 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAD to LGA questions
How often is IAD to LGA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.9% of the 911 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is IAD to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
73.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IAD to LGA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 86.0% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 68.4%, 18 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 June delays on IAD to LGA?
June is the weakest month at 59.6% on time, compared with 86.7% in January. Across the year that is 27 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 IAD — the return legseparate record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- IAD to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- IAD to DEN, a related route83.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record73.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. IAD to LGA and LGA to IAD 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.