Route reliability record
LGA→ORF
New York to Norfolk
- Flights
- 1,382
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 296 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.9% 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 1,382 LGA to ORF flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to ORF: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.4% of the time and Saturday flights 83.0%, against 76.4% 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
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,286 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.87%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
76.5% on time across 1,377 flights
These figures cover 1,382 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 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 | 1,377 | 76.5% | 62 min | 6.90% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 60.0% | 26 min | 0.00% | D+ |
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.
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 | 81.4% | 85.1% | 4.38% | 11am–2pm, Tue | YX 4359 15:10 |
| 2. EWR → ORFNewark to Norfolk | Republic Airways | 79.0% | 83.1% | 4.97% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. LGA → ORFNew York to Norfolk | Republic Airways | 71.2% | 76.5% | 6.90% | 5am–8am, Sat (route) | 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 18 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–8am240 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am188 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm198 flights78.8%
- 2pm–5pm330 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm10 flights—
- 8pm–5am416 flights68.0%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.4% of the time, against 68.0% for the overnight window. That is 18 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 416 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 87.8% in August. 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 174 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.4%. 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 19,000 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
- 24%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 7%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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 18,777 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 86.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.87%, against 1.81% 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
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 75.9% on time across 1,381 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 1,382 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 6.87% 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. 1,286 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 23.6% of the 1,382 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is LGA to ORF compared with the rest of the country?
76.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B− 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 86.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.0%, 18 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 87.8% in August. Across the year that is 27 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 route67.3%
- ATL to ORF, a related route79.0%
- LGA to ATL, a related route76.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record60.0%
- 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.
Embed LGA to ORF’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.