Route reliability record
LGA→PWM
New York to Portland
- Flights
- 1,137
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 269 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.8% 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 1,137 LGA to PWM flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to PWM: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.4% of the time and Saturday flights 81.0%, against 77.5% 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
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,083 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.75%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
77.2% on time across 1,107 flights
These figures cover 1,137 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 PWM
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 27 | 88.9% | 54 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 1,107 | 77.2% | 63 min | 4.88% | B− |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 3 | 66.7% | 177 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to Portland
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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → PWMNewark to Portland | Republic Airways | 84.1% | 86.6% | 2.91% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. LGA → PWMNew York to Portland | Republic Airways | 73.4% | 77.2% | 4.88% | 8am–11am, Sat (route) | — |
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 19 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–8am20 flights—
- 8am–11am271 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm188 flights86.0%
- 2pm–5pm296 flights71.7%
- 5pm–8pm107 flights68.0%
- 8pm–5am255 flights69.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.4% of the time, against 68.0% for the evening window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 296 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 October, when the on-time rate falls to 64.5%. February is the strongest month at 87.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 23 points. October was the busiest month here, with 142 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.1%. 7 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 51% of the 15,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
51% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 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 15,395 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.75%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 269 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.4% on time across 1,137 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,137 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 PWM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.75% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,083 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to PWM questions
How often is LGA to PWM 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 22.5% of the 1,137 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is LGA to PWM compared with the rest of the country?
77.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half 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 PWM?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.0%, 19 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 October delays on LGA to PWM?
October is the weakest month at 64.5% on time, compared with 87.8% in February. Across the year that is 23 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
- PWM to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route67.3%
- ORD to PWM, a related route74.0%
- LGA to ATL, a related route76.6%
- American Airlines on-time record88.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record66.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to PWM and PWM 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.