Route reliability record
LGA→RIC
New York to Richmond
- Flights
- 2,278
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 291 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 7.2% 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 2,278 LGA to RIC flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to RIC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 77.9%, against 74.7% 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
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,113 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.16%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
75.0% on time across 2,190 flights
These figures cover 2,278 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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 RIC
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 | 2,190 | 75.0% | 66 min | 7.35% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 88 | 68.6% | 85 min | 2.27% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA to RIC
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.
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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 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am208 flights90.8%
- 8am–11am535 flights79.8%
- 11am–2pm286 flights73.8%
- 2pm–5pm371 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm336 flights65.9%
- 8pm–5am542 flights69.4%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.8% of the time, against 65.9% for the evening window. That is 25 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 542 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA to RIC 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 RIC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.9%, a wide gap of 24.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.8%
- 8–11am79.8%
- 11am–2pm73.8%
- 2–5pm73.9%
- 5–8pm65.9%
- 8pm–5am69.4%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 60.2% on time, against 84.9% in May. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 210 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.7%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 35,934 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 90.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 7.16%, 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
9.5% 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 291 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 73.8% on time across 2,280 flights, within about 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 2,278 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 RIC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.16% 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. 2,113 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to RIC questions
How often is LGA to RIC 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 25.3% of the 2,278 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is LGA to RIC compared with the rest of the country?
74.7% 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 RIC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.9%, 25 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 RIC?
December is the weakest month at 60.2% on time, compared with 84.9% in May. Across the year that is 25 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
- RIC to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ATL to RIC, a related route81.6%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record68.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to RIC and RIC 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.