Route reliability record
LGA→PIT
New York to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 3,013
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 335 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five 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 3,013 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
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
79.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,876 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.45%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
79.4% on time across 2,863 flights
These figures cover 3,013 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 PIT
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 | 2,863 | 79.4% | 75 min | 4.54% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 150 | 71.2% | 79 min | 2.67% | C |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am189 flights91.2%
- 8am–11am772 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm524 flights79.6%
- 2pm–5pm588 flights74.4%
- 5pm–8pm638 flights72.6%
- 8pm–5am302 flights69.5%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.2% of the time, against 69.5% for the overnight window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 772 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 66.7% on time, against 87.3% 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. September was the busiest month here, with 294 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.1%. 11 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 47% of the 45,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% 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 45,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 45,301 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 91.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.45%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
8.9% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 335 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 80.9% on time across 3,011 flights, within 2 points 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 3,013 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.45% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 2,876 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to PIT questions
How often is LGA to PIT delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.0% of the 3,013 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 PIT compared with the rest of the country?
79.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to PIT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 69.5%, 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 PIT?
December is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 87.3% in August. Across the year that is 21 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
- PIT to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on-time record79.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record71.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. LGA to PIT and PIT to LGA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.