Route reliability record
LGA→BUF
New York to Buffalo
- Flights
- 1,835
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 292 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.2% 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 1,835 LGA to BUF flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to BUF: a 5pm–8pm departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.7% of the time and Saturday flights 85.9%, against 76.1% 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
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,720 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.16%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
76.1% on time across 1,835 flights
These figures cover 1,835 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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 LGA to BUF
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 | 1,835 | 76.1% | 69 min | 6.16% | B− |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to Buffalo
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. JFK → BUFNew York to Buffalo | JetBlue Airways | 71.6% | 75.0% | 4.52% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 1602 07:30 |
| 2. LGA → BUFNew York to Buffalo | Republic Airways | 71.4% | 76.1% | 6.16% | 5pm–8pm, 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 17 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–8am5 flights—
- 8am–11am408 flights82.4%
- 11am–2pm277 flights82.3%
- 2pm–5pm527 flights74.4%
- 5pm–8pm61 flights84.7%
- 8pm–5am557 flights68.1%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 84.7% on time. The full set of windows spans 17 points.
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.
December is the weak month at 62.2% on time, against 88.7% in September. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 190 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.0%. 19 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 28,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% 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 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 28,209 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 6.16%, 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.7% 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.
At 292 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 5pm–8pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 78.2% on time across 1,835 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,835 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in BUF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.16% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5pm–8pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,720 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to BUF questions
How often is LGA to BUF 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 23.9% of the 1,835 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is LGA to BUF compared with the rest of the country?
76.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to BUF?
The 5pm–8pm departure window is the strongest at 84.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.1%, 17 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 LGA to BUF?
December is the weakest month at 62.2% on time, compared with 88.7% in September. 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
- BUF to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route67.3%
- ORD to BUF, a related route70.6%
- LGA to ATL, a related route76.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to BUF and BUF to LGA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed LGA to BUF’s on-time badge on your site
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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.