Route reliability record
LGA→STL
New York to St. Louis
- Flights
- 2,577
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 888 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.6% 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 B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,577 LGA to STL flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,175 at 77.5% on time.
Best time to fly LGA to STL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.1%, against 75.2% 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
75.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,452 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.62%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
77.5% on time across 1,175 flights
These figures cover 2,577 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 STL
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,175 | 77.5% | 75 min | 5.62% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,395 | 73.3% | 68 min | 3.80% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 71.4% | 22 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Republic Airways cancels 5.6% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to St. Louis
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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → STLNewark to St. Louis | Republic Airways | 82.0% | 86.8% | 5.54% | 8am–11am, Fri | YX 3630 09:00 |
| 2. LGA → STLNew York to St. Louis | Republic Airways | 73.1% | 77.5% | 5.62% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. LGA → STLNew York to St. Louis | Southwest Airlines | 70.5% | 73.3% | 3.80% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 34 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am308 flights94.0%
- 8am–11am686 flights82.9%
- 11am–2pm488 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm404 flights65.5%
- 5pm–8pm636 flights59.8%
- 8pm–5am55 flights71.7%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.8% on time, against 94.0% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 686 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA to STL 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 STL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.8%, a wide gap of 34.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.0%
- 8–11am82.9%
- 11am–2pm79.8%
- 2–5pm65.5%
- 5–8pm59.8%
- 8pm–5am71.7%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 63.2% on time, against 85.6% in January. 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 255 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.5%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 43,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 43,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 42,940 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 94.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.62%, 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
8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 888 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.
The return leg runs 74.0% on time across 2,578 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 2,577 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 STL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.62% 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. 2,452 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to STL questions
How often is LGA to STL 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 24.8% of the 2,577 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to STL?
Republic Airways leads at 77.5% on time across 1,175 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 73.3%, a gap of 4 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to STL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.8%, 34 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 STL?
December is the weakest month at 63.2% on time, compared with 85.6% in January. Across the year that is 22 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
- STL to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- St. Louis Lambert International (STL) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on LGA to STL77.5%
- Southwest Airlines on LGA to STL73.3%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- DEN to STL, a related route77.7%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.3%
- 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 STL and STL 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.