Carrier route record
DLLGA→RSW
Delta Air Lines · New York to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 704
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 78%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LGA to RSW lands a B−, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 704 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on LGA to RSW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 673 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.8%
Every carrier on LGA to RSW, 904 flights
These figures cover 704 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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
Delta against every carrier on LGA to RSW
Delta flew 704 of the 904 flights on LGA to RSW, most of the route. Its 76.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 76.2% to American at 69.6%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 704 | 76.2% | 80 min | 3.98% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 200 | 69.6% | 68 min | 4.50% | C− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on LGA to RSW
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 23 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–8am278 flights85.0%
- 8am–11am87 flights88.6%
- 11am–2pm13 flights—
- 2pm–5pm326 flights65.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.6% of the time, against 65.4% for the afternoon window. That is 23 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
Delta on LGA to RSW through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 88.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 61.7%. 26 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, 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 5,169 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,817 reported delay minutes.
33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 4,248 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.98%, 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.1% 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 72.4% on time across 704 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. 704 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on LGA to RSW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.98% 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. 673 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to RSW, every carrier
- Delta on RSW to LGA, the return leg
- American Airlines on LGA to RSW69.6%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.