Carrier route record
DLMCI→LGA
Delta Air Lines · Kansas City to New York
- Flights
- 972
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 53%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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: 6.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five 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 972 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 903 completed flights
Avg delay
109 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.28%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.3%
Every carrier on MCI to LGA, 1,850 flights
These figures cover 972 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on MCI to LGA
Delta flew 972 of the 1,850 flights on MCI to LGA, most of the route. Its 78.4% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 78.4% to Southwest at 73.9%. 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) | 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− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MCI to LGA
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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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am331 flights90.4%
- 8am–11am118 flights84.4%
- 11am–2pm224 flights74.2%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm268 flights66.5%
- 8pm–5am31 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.4% of the time, against 66.5% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 331 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. October was the busiest month here, with 89 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 94.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.6%, a spread of 26 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on MCI to LGA runs when it is late
Delta on MCI to LGA often beats the schedule: 373 of 903 completed flights, 41%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 195 late arrivals split 56 under half an hour, 49 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 90 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early373 flights41.3%
- Within 15 min335 flights37.1%
- 15–29 min late56 flights6.2%
- 30–59 min late49 flights5.4%
- 1–2 hours late54 flights6.0%
- 2+ hours late36 flights4.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 903 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
25 of 184 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. 36 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on MCI to LGA
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 November 2025, 18 hours 25 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 November 2025 | 18 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 December 2025 | 17 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 15 January 2026 | 16 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 August 2026 | 14 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 December 2025 | 14 hours | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 10,000 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 21,310 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 90.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.28%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
10.0% 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 70.0% on time across 972 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 972 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 6.28% 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. 903 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 LGA73.9%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.