Carrier route record
WNLGA→MCI
Southwest Airlines · New York to Kansas City
- Flights
- 782
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 44%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on LGA to MCI carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 782 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on LGA to MCI runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 106 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 749 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.96%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.7%
Every carrier on LGA to MCI, 1,796 flights
These figures cover 782 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.8% 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
Southwest against every carrier on LGA to MCI
Southwest flew 782 of the 1,796 flights on LGA to MCI, about 44% of it. Its 67.0% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 68.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three 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 | 975 | 70.1% | 85 min | 5.03% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 35 | 69.7% | 52 min | 5.71% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 782 | 67.0% | 68 min | 3.96% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 50.0% | 35 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 37 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 flights90.4%
- 8am–11am32 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm225 flights75.3%
- 2pm–5pm97 flights53.1%
- 5pm–8pm27 flights—
- 8pm–5am296 flights58.7%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.4% of the time, against 53.1% for the afternoon window. That is 37 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 296 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on LGA to MCI through the year
December is the weak month at 41.4% on time, against 88.5% in January. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 86 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 55.9%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 17,000 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.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
60% 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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 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 16,741 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 90.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.96%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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. 13.8% 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 76.4% on time across 782 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 782 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 Southwest on LGA to MCI
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.96% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 749 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to MCI, every carrier
- Southwest on MCI to LGA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to MCI70.1%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.