Carrier route record
WNMCI→LGA
Southwest Airlines · Kansas City to New York
- Flights
- 839
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 45%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCI to LGA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.2% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 839 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest 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
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 802 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.22%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.3%
Every carrier on MCI to LGA, 1,850 flights
These figures cover 839 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MCI to LGA
Southwest flew 839 of the 1,850 flights on MCI to LGA, about 45% of it. Its 73.9% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last 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 | 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 (this page) | 839 | 73.9% | 62 min | 3.22% | C− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 41 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am322 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am21 flights—
- 11am–2pm198 flights70.2%
- 2pm–5pm48 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm250 flights51.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.5% on time, against 92.7% 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 322 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCI to LGA through the year
July is the worst month at 63.4% on time, 27 points below January, the best at 90.2%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 88 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 79.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.5%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on MCI to LGA runs when it is late
The 209 late arrivals split 80 under half an hour, 56 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 73 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early154 flights19.2%
- Within 15 min439 flights54.7%
- 15–29 min late80 flights10.0%
- 30–59 min late56 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late42 flights5.2%
- 2+ hours late31 flights3.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 802 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
32 of 203 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 38 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on MCI to LGA
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 November 2025, 4 hours 38 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 November 2025 | 4 hours 38 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 9 July 2026 | 4 hours 19 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 December 2025 | 4 hours 11 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 10 August 2026 | 3 hours 58 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 September 2025 | 3 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest 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.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% 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 5,357 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 13,013 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 92.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.22%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
9.1% 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 65.8% on time across 839 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. 839 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 Southwest on MCI to LGA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.22% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 802 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCI to LGA, every carrier
- Southwest on LGA to MCI, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on MCI to LGA78.4%
- Southwest Airlines 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.