Route reliability record
MCI→LGA
Kansas City to New York
- Flights
- 1,850
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,107 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.9% 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 1,850 MCI to LGA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 972 at 78.4% on time.
Best time to fly MCI to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.0% of the time and Friday flights 83.3%, against 76.3% 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
76.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,742 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.86%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
78.4% on time across 972 flights
These figures cover 1,850 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 MCI to LGA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 972 | 78.4% | 109 min | 6.28% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 35 | 75.8% | 107 min | 5.71% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 31 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 839 | 73.9% | 62 min | 3.22% | C− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 6.3% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCI to LGA
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Kansas City to New York
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MCI → LGAKansas City to New York | Delta Air Lines | 73.5% | 78.4% | 6.28% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 370 06:00 |
| 2. MCI → LGAKansas City to New York | Southwest Airlines | 71.5% | 73.9% | 3.22% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 31 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am669 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am139 flights85.4%
- 11am–2pm433 flights72.5%
- 2pm–5pm48 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm530 flights59.7%
- 8pm–5am31 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.7% on time, against 91.0% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 669 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCI to LGA 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 MCI to LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.7%, a wide gap of 31.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.0%
- 8–11am85.4%
- 11am–2pm72.5%
- 2–5pm68.2%
- 5–8pm59.7%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 60.3% on time, against 89.3% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 173 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.0%, a spread of 13 points.
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 35,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 35,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 35,206 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 91.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.86%, against 1.89% 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
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.
The 1,107 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 68.0% on time across 1,850 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,850 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.86% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,742 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCI to LGA questions
How often is MCI to LGA 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 23.7% of the 1,850 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCI to LGA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 78.4% on time across 972 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 73.9%, a gap of 5 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 MCI to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.7%, 31 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 MCI to LGA?
December is the weakest month at 60.3% on time, compared with 89.3% in January. Across the year that is 29 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
- LGA to MCI — the return legseparate record
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MCI to LGA78.4%
- Southwest Airlines on MCI to LGA73.9%
- MCI to DEN, a related route78.1%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- MCI to ORD, a related route74.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.8%
- American Airlines on-time record75.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MCI to LGA and LGA to MCI 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.