Route reliability record
LGA→PIT
New York to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 3,013
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 335 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 LGA to PIT flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to PIT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Friday flights 81.1%, against 78.3% 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
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,844 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
78.6% on time across 2,915 flights
These figures cover 3,013 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 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 | 2,915 | 78.6% | 80 min | 5.66% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 98 | 71.4% | 79 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA to PIT
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 Pittsburgh
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → PITNewark to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 77.0% | 81.4% | 5.44% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | YX 3403 19:29 |
| 2. LGA → PITNew York to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 74.2% | 78.6% | 5.66% | 5am–8am, Fri (route) | YX 4579 13:10 |
| 3. JFK → PITNew York to Pittsburgh | Republic Airways | 71.6% | 76.3% | 6.18% | 11am–2pm, Sat | YX 4611 19:40 |
| 4. JFK → PITNew York to Pittsburgh | JetBlue Airways | 62.3% | 66.2% | 5.95% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | B6 1195 22:00 |
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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am211 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am751 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm573 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm535 flights75.1%
- 5pm–8pm638 flights73.0%
- 8pm–5am305 flights66.5%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.1% of the time, against 66.5% for the overnight window. That is 24 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 751 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA to PIT 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 PIT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 66.5%, a wide gap of 23.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.1%
- 8–11am84.7%
- 11am–2pm79.8%
- 2–5pm75.1%
- 5–8pm73.0%
- 8pm–5am66.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 86.4% in June. 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, Friday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.8%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 49,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 4%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. Across 49,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 49,446 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 90.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.48%, against 1.89% 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
9.4% 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 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 79.9% on time across 3,012 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PIT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.48% 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. 2,844 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.7% of the 3,013 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 PIT compared with the rest of the country?
78.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 90.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.5%, 24 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 86.4% in June. Across the year that is 20 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
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ORD to PIT, a related route73.6%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record71.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
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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.