Route reliability record
LGA→MCI
New York to Kansas City
- Flights
- 1,850
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,107 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 1,850 LGA to MCI flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 972 at 70.0% on time.
Best time to fly LGA to MCI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.2% of the time and Saturday flights 76.2%, against 68.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 93 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,748 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
70.0% on time across 972 flights
These figures cover 1,850 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.5% 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 LGA to MCI
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 972 | 70.0% | 82 min | 5.97% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 35 | 69.7% | 52 min | 5.71% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 839 | 65.8% | 69 min | 4.41% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 50.0% | 35 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Delta Air Lines cancels 6.0% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA to MCI
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to Kansas City
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LGA → MCINew York to Kansas City | Delta Air Lines | 65.8% | 70.0% | 5.97% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 572 08:30 |
| 2. LGA → MCINew York to Kansas City | Southwest Airlines | 62.9% | 65.8% | 4.41% | 5am–8am, 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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am253 flights88.2%
- 8am–11am281 flights76.6%
- 11am–2pm173 flights73.8%
- 2pm–5pm480 flights57.9%
- 5pm–8pm103 flights69.1%
- 8pm–5am560 flights60.9%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.2% of the time, against 57.9% for the afternoon window. That is 30 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 560 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA to MCI 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 LGA to MCI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.2% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 57.9%, a wide gap of 30.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.2%
- 8–11am76.6%
- 11am–2pm73.8%
- 2–5pm57.9%
- 5–8pm69.1%
- 8pm–5am60.9%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 41 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 43.1% on time, against 84.2% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 173 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 76.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.8%, a spread of 14 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 42,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 41,938 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 88.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.24%, against 1.89% 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
13.5% 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 1,107 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 76.3% on time across 1,850 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,850 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 MCI after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.24% 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. 1,748 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to MCI questions
How often is LGA to MCI delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.0% of the 1,850 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to MCI?
Delta Air Lines leads at 70.0% on time across 972 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 65.8%, a gap of 4 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to MCI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 57.9%, 30 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 MCI?
December is the weakest month at 43.1% on time, compared with 84.2% in September. Across the year that is 41 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
- MCI to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to MCI70.0%
- Southwest Airlines on LGA to MCI65.8%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- DEN to MCI, a related route76.5%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record70.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record69.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record65.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to MCI and MCI to LGA 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.