Route reliability record
LGA→MEM
New York to Memphis
- Flights
- 1,099
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 963 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 1,099 LGA to MEM flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to MEM: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.4% of the time and Saturday flights 80.2%, against 73.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,025 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.28%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
73.8% on time across 1,099 flights
These figures cover 1,099 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.8% 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 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 | 1,099 | 73.8% | 79 min | 6.28% | C− |
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.
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
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 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am235 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm235 flights78.2%
- 2pm–5pm249 flights72.9%
- 5pm–8pm77 flights68.6%
- 8pm–5am303 flights60.8%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.8% on time, against 87.4% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 303 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA to MEM 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 MEM, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 60.8%, a wide gap of 26.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am87.4%
- 11am–2pm78.2%
- 2–5pm72.9%
- 5–8pm68.6%
- 8pm–5am60.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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 80.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 69.9%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 21,242 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 87.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.28%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
12.8% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.6% on time across 1,096 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,099 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 MEM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.28% 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. 1,025 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 26.2% of the 1,099 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
73.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C− 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 87.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.8%, 27 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
- Memphis International (MEM) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ATL to MEM, a related route81.1%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record73.8%
- 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.
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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.