Route reliability record
MIA→LGA
Miami to New York
- Flights
- 5,955
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,096 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 5,955 MIA to LGA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,916 at 73.4% on time.
Best time to fly MIA to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 73.8%, against 67.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 99 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,648 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.21%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
73.4% on time across 1,916 flights
These figures cover 5,955 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.8% 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 MIA to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 73.4% of the time; American Airlines manages 65.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,570 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,916 | 73.4% | 64 min | 3.91% | C− |
| American Airlines | 3,570 | 65.3% | 83 min | 3.70% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 112 | 60.2% | 92 min | 12.50% | D− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 357 | 58.0% | 74 min | 8.40% | D− |
Delta Air Lines cancels 3.9% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on MIA 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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Miami to New York
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → EWRFort Lauderdale to Newark | United Airlines | 76.1% | 78.1% | 2.57% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. MIA → EWRMiami to Newark | United Airlines | 73.7% | 75.5% | 2.37% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 1864 07:07 |
| 3. FLL → HPNFort Lauderdale to White Plains | JetBlue Airways | 72.7% | 74.3% | 2.16% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 814 07:00 |
| 4. FLL → JFKFort Lauderdale to New York | Delta Air Lines | 71.9% | 74.9% | 4.02% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2165 07:25 |
| 5. MIA → LGAMiami to New York | Delta Air Lines | 70.5% | 73.4% | 3.91% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 2387 07:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 31 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am832 flights85.9%
- 8am–11am1,117 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm875 flights65.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,311 flights58.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,063 flights54.8%
- 8pm–5am757 flights59.9%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.8% on time, against 85.9% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,311 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MIA 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 MIA to LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 54.8%, a wide gap of 31.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.9%
- 8–11am81.0%
- 11am–2pm65.7%
- 2–5pm58.9%
- 5–8pm54.8%
- 8pm–5am59.9%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 79.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 577 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 73.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 55.3%, a spread of 19 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 142,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 26%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 142,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 142,252 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 85.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.21%, against 1.89% 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
13.8% 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 1,096 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 runs 69.9% on time across 5,951 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 5,955 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 4.21% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 5,648 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MIA to LGA questions
How often is MIA to LGA delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.6% of the 5,955 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MIA to LGA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 73.4% on time across 1,916 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 65.3%, a gap of 8 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MIA to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 54.8%, 31 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 MIA to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 51.3% on time, compared with 79.8% in September. Across the year that is 29 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 MIA — the return legseparate record
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MIA to LGA73.4%
- American Airlines on MIA to LGA65.3%
- Frontier Airlines on MIA to LGA60.2%
- Spirit Airlines on MIA to LGA58.0%
- MIA to ATL, a related route74.2%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- MIA to DFW, a related route75.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record73.4%
- American Airlines on-time record65.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record60.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MIA to LGA and LGA to MIA 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.