Route reliability record
MEM→LGA
Memphis to New York
- Flights
- 1,033
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 963 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.1% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 1,033 MEM to LGA flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly MEM to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.9% of the time and Saturday flights 87.0%, against 79.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 986 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.07%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
79.4% on time across 1,033 flights
These figures cover 1,033 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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
Which airline is most reliable on MEM to LGA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,033 | 79.4% | 84 min | 4.07% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on MEM 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.
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 26 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–8am360 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am21 flights—
- 11am–2pm284 flights82.7%
- 2pm–5pm168 flights63.6%
- 5pm–8pm200 flights66.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.9% of the time, against 63.6% for the afternoon window. That is 26 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 360 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 56.7%. August is the strongest month at 89.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 33 points. May was the busiest month here, with 135 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.9%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 17,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%National Airspace System
- 32%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
35% 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 5,966 minutes out of 17,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 17,095 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.07%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% 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 963 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 76.1% on time across 1,036 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,033 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.
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 4.07% 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. 986 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MEM to LGA questions
How often is MEM to LGA delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.6% of the 1,033 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MEM to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
79.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MEM to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 63.6%, 26 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 March delays on MEM to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 56.7% on time, compared with 89.4% in August. Across the year that is 33 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 MEM — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- MEM to ATL, a related route87.4%
- ORD to LGA, a related route67.3%
- MEM to ORD, a related route76.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record79.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. MEM to LGA and LGA to MEM 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.