Route reliability record
LGA→ORF
New York to Norfolk
- Flights
- 1,231
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 296 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.8% 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 1,231 LGA to ORF flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to ORF: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.0% of the time and Saturday flights 81.8%, against 74.0% 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
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,145 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.82%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
74.0% on time across 1,231 flights
These figures cover 1,231 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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 ORF
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 | 1,231 | 74.0% | 62 min | 6.82% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA to ORF
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to Norfolk
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. JFK → ORFNew York to Norfolk | Republic Airways | 77.4% | 82.4% | 6.02% | 11am–2pm, Tue | YX 4359 15:30 |
| 2. EWR → ORFNewark to Norfolk | Republic Airways | 77.4% | 83.4% | 7.20% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. LGA → ORFNew York to Norfolk | Republic Airways | 69.0% | 74.0% | 6.82% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4589 21:29 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am239 flights86.0%
- 8am–11am152 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm141 flights77.4%
- 2pm–5pm318 flights68.5%
- 5pm–8pm18 flights—
- 8pm–5am363 flights64.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.3% on time, against 86.0% for the 5am–8am 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 363 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA to ORF 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 ORF, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 64.3%, a wide gap of 21.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.0%
- 8–11am84.8%
- 11am–2pm77.4%
- 2–5pm68.5%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am64.3%
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 26 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 60.6% on time, against 86.2% in September. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 147 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.3%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% 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 8 to one. The split is drawn from 18,538 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 86.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.82%, 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
9.6% 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.
At 296 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 74.3% on time across 1,230 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,231 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 ORF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.82% 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. 1,145 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to ORF questions
How often is LGA to ORF 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 26.0% of the 1,231 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is LGA to ORF compared with the rest of the country?
74.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 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 ORF?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.3%, 22 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 ORF?
December is the weakest month at 60.6% on time, compared with 86.2% in September. Across the year that is 26 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
- ORF to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ATL to ORF, a related route78.7%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to ORF and ORF 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.