Carrier route record
DLLGA→MCI
Delta Air Lines · New York to Kansas City
- Flights
- 975
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LGA to MCI carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 975 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Delta on LGA to MCI runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 75 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 924 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.03%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.7%
Every carrier on LGA to MCI, 1,796 flights
These figures cover 975 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.8% 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
Delta against every carrier on LGA to MCI
Delta flew 975 of the 1,796 flights on LGA to MCI, most of the route. Its 70.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 68.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 70.1% to American at 50.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 975 | 70.1% | 85 min | 5.03% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 35 | 69.7% | 52 min | 5.71% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 782 | 67.0% | 68 min | 3.96% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 50.0% | 35 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on LGA to MCI
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am105 flights84.3%
- 8am–11am223 flights79.7%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm324 flights59.5%
- 5pm–8pm107 flights70.9%
- 8pm–5am215 flights69.0%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.3% of the time, against 59.5% for the afternoon window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 324 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on LGA to MCI through the year
December is the weak month at 34.0% on time, against 86.9% 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 89 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.6%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 23,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 9,662 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 23,400 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.03%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.8% 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 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. 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 77.5% on time across 975 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 975 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on LGA to MCI
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.03% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 924 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to MCI, every carrier
- Delta on MCI to LGA, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on LGA to MCI67.0%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.