Route reliability record
LGA→MSN
New York to Madison
- Flights
- 930
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 812 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 930 LGA to MSN flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to MSN: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 79.2% of the time and Friday flights 77.3%, against 71.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 56 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 867 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.67%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
71.7% on time across 926 flights
These figures cover 930 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.3% 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 MSN
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 Linesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 114 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 926 | 71.7% | 82 min | 6.70% | C− |
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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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am17 flights—
- 11am–2pm250 flights79.2%
- 2pm–5pm45 flights73.2%
- 5pm–8pm471 flights70.0%
- 8pm–5am147 flights63.6%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.6% on time, against 79.2% for the 11am–2pm 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 471 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA to MSN 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 MSN, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 79.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.6%, a wide gap of 15.6 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm79.2%
- 2–5pm73.2%
- 5–8pm70.0%
- 8pm–5am63.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 37 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 53.8%. February is the strongest month at 90.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 37 points. March was the busiest month here, with 89 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 77.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 20,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 to one. The split is drawn from 20,200 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 6.67%, 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
14.3% 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 812 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 84.9% on time across 930 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 930 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 MSN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.67% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 867 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to MSN questions
How often is LGA to MSN delayed?
Roughly 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 28.3% of the 930 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is LGA to MSN compared with the rest of the country?
71.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 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 MSN?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 79.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.6%, 16 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 March delays on LGA to MSN?
March is the weakest month at 53.8% on time, compared with 90.4% in February. Across the year that is 37 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
- MSN to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ORD to MSN, a related route71.0%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record71.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to MSN and MSN to LGA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed LGA to MSN’s on-time badge on your site
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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.