Route reliability record
MEM→LGA
Memphis to New York
- Flights
- 1,096
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 963 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.3% 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 1,096 MEM to LGA flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly MEM to LGA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.3% of the time and Saturday flights 87.6%, against 78.6% 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
78.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,029 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.29%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
78.6% on time across 1,096 flights
These figures cover 1,096 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 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 | 1,096 | 78.6% | 85 min | 5.29% | 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.
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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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am412 flights87.2%
- 8am–11am31 flights93.3%
- 11am–2pm237 flights82.2%
- 2pm–5pm213 flights63.9%
- 5pm–8pm203 flights69.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 93.3% of the time, against 63.9% for the afternoon window. That is 29 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 412 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MEM 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 MEM to LGA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 93.3% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 63.9%, a wide gap of 29.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am87.2%
- 8–11am93.3%
- 11am–2pm82.2%
- 2–5pm63.9%
- 5–8pm69.1%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 87.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 135 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.3%, a spread of 14 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 19,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
33% 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 6,122 minutes out of 19,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 18,797 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,850 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 5.29%, 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
10.8% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.8% on time across 1,099 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,096 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 5.29% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,029 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 21.4% of the 1,096 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
78.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point 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 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 63.9%, 29 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 87.8% in April. Across the year that is 31 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
- Memphis International (MEM) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- MEM to ATL, a related route86.2%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- MEM to ORD, a related route74.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record78.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.