Carrier route record
WNLGA→MCI
Southwest Airlines · New York to Kansas City
- Flights
- 839
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 45%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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: 4.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 839 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on LGA to MCI runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 115 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 800 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.41%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
68.0%
Every carrier on LGA to MCI, 1,850 flights
These figures cover 839 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on LGA to MCI
Southwest flew 839 of the 1,850 flights on LGA to MCI, about 45% of it. Its 65.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 68.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 70.0% 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 | 972 | 70.0% | 82 min | 5.97% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 35 | 69.7% | 52 min | 5.71% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 839 | 65.8% | 69 min | 4.41% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 50.0% | 35 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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.
- 5am–8am145 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am49 flights73.5%
- 11am–2pm173 flights73.8%
- 2pm–5pm148 flights54.2%
- 5pm–8pm18 flights—
- 8pm–5am306 flights55.2%
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 91.0% of the time, against 54.2% 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 306 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. July was the busiest month here, with 88 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 71.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on LGA to MCI runs when it is late
The 274 late arrivals split 91 under half an hour, 71 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 112 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early147 flights18.4%
- Within 15 min379 flights47.4%
- 15–29 min late91 flights11.4%
- 30–59 min late71 flights8.9%
- 1–2 hours late71 flights8.9%
- 2+ hours late41 flights5.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 800 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
54 of 279 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. In the other direction, 49 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MCI.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on LGA to MCI
The latest arrival of the period was on 10 August 2026, 7 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in August 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 10 August 2026 | 7 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 August 2026 | 5 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 December 2025 | 4 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 August 2026 | 4 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 20 May 2026 | 4 hours 34 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
59% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 19,023 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 91.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.41%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
14.0% 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 73.9% on time across 839 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 839 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 4.41% 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. 800 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 MCI70.0%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.