Carrier route record
DLMCI→LGA
Delta Air Lines · Kansas City to New York
- Flights
- 975
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MCI to LGA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.3% 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 B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 975 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on MCI to LGA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 916 completed flights
Avg delay
109 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.33%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.0%
Every carrier on MCI to LGA, 1,796 flights
These figures cover 975 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 MCI to LGA
Delta flew 975 of the 1,796 flights on MCI to LGA, most of the route. Its 77.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 77.5% to American at 75.0%. Two 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) | 975 | 77.5% | 109 min | 5.33% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 782 | 76.4% | 60 min | 3.71% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 35 | 75.8% | 107 min | 5.71% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 31 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MCI to LGA
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 25 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–8am325 flights88.9%
- 8am–11am71 flights85.5%
- 11am–2pm280 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm268 flights63.5%
- 8pm–5am31 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.5% on time, against 88.9% 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 325 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MCI to LGA through the year
December is the weak month at 44.9% on time, against 88.7% 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 89 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 95.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.3%. 26 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 46%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, 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 10,000 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 22,508 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 88.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.33%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.4% 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 1,107 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. 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 70.1% on time across 975 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 975 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 MCI to LGA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.33% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 916 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCI to LGA, every carrier
- Delta on LGA to MCI, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on MCI to LGA76.4%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.