Route reliability record
LGA→MEM
New York to Memphis
- Flights
- 1,036
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 963 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.2% 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 1,036 LGA to MEM flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to MEM: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.8% of the time and Saturday flights 83.0%, 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 979 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.21%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
76.1% on time across 1,036 flights
These figures cover 1,036 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 MEM
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 | 1,036 | 76.1% | 71 min | 5.21% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA to MEM
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.
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 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–8am—
- 8am–11am283 flights88.8%
- 11am–2pm206 flights78.4%
- 2pm–5pm215 flights73.7%
- 5pm–8pm75 flights66.2%
- 8pm–5am257 flights64.1%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.1% on time, against 88.8% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 283 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 63.8% on time, against 86.5% in April. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 136 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.7%. 10 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 48% 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 12 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 16,633 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.21%, 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.6% 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 963 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 79.4% on time across 1,033 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,036 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MEM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.21% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 979 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to MEM questions
How often is LGA to MEM 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 1,036 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 MEM 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 MEM?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.1%, 25 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 MEM?
December is the weakest month at 63.8% on time, compared with 86.5% in April. Across the year that is 23 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
- MEM to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route67.3%
- ATL to MEM, a related route82.3%
- 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 MEM and MEM to LGA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed LGA to MEM’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.