Route reliability record
LGA→RSW
New York to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 904
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,080 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 904 LGA to RSW flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to RSW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.4% of the time and Saturday flights 80.6%, against 74.8% 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
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 864 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.09%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
76.2% on time across 704 flights
These figures cover 904 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 RSW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 704 | 76.2% | 80 min | 3.98% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 200 | 69.6% | 68 min | 4.50% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA to RSW
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 Fort Myers
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. JFK → RSWNew York to Fort Myers | Delta Air Lines | 84.1% | 88.0% | 4.45% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 2320 07:00 |
| 2. EWR → RSWNewark to Fort Myers | United Airlines | 78.5% | 79.9% | 1.76% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. LGA → RSWNew York to Fort Myers | Delta Air Lines | 73.2% | 76.2% | 3.98% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 379 07:15 |
| 4. JFK → RSWNew York to Fort Myers | JetBlue Airways | 70.8% | 73.4% | 3.58% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1529 06:30 |
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 20 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–8am279 flights85.0%
- 8am–11am97 flights85.4%
- 11am–2pm202 flights71.0%
- 2pm–5pm326 flights65.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 85.4% of the time, against 65.4% for the afternoon window. That is 20 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 326 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 88.3% in September. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 63.9%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 17,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 31%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 6,086 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,743 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.09%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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. 10.2% 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.
The 1,080 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.1% on time across 904 flights, 4 points below 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 904 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in RSW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.09% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 864 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to RSW questions
How often is LGA to RSW 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 25.2% of the 904 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 RSW compared with the rest of the country?
74.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 RSW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 85.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 65.4%, 20 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 RSW?
December is the weakest month at 60.2% on time, compared with 88.3% in September. Across the year that is 28 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
- RSW to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to RSW76.2%
- American Airlines on LGA to RSW69.6%
- LGA to ORD, a related route67.3%
- ORD to RSW, a related route76.1%
- LGA to ATL, a related route76.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.2%
- American Airlines on-time record69.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. LGA to RSW and RSW 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.