Route reliability record
MKE→LGA
Milwaukee to New York
- Flights
- 868
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 738 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 7.5% 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 868 MKE to LGA flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly MKE to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.7% of the time and Thursday flights 87.0%, against 81.1% 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
81.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 799 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
81.1% on time across 868 flights
These figures cover 868 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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
Which airline is most reliable on MKE 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 | 868 | 81.1% | 92 min | 7.49% | B− |
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Milwaukee 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MKE → EWRMilwaukee to Newark | Republic Airways | 75.2% | 79.9% | 5.88% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 3510 19:08 |
| 2. MKE → LGAMilwaukee to New York | Republic Airways | 75.0% | 81.1% | 7.49% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am208 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am204 flights81.9%
- 11am–2pm128 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm139 flights81.2%
- 5pm–8pm189 flights73.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 73.8% for the evening window. That is 13 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 208 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MKE 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 MKE to LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 73.8%, a wide gap of 12.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.7%
- 8–11am81.9%
- 11am–2pm80.7%
- 2–5pm81.2%
- 5–8pm73.8%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 63.7%. February is the strongest month at 91.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 28 points. July was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 78.3%, a spread of 9 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 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 15%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 13% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,882 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,739 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 7.49%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twelve 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
9.5% 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 738 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 81.3% on time across 868 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 868 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 7.49% 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. 799 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MKE to LGA questions
How often is MKE 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 18.9% of the 868 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MKE to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
81.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MKE to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.8%, 13 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 MKE to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 63.7% on time, compared with 91.2% in February. Across the year that is 28 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 MKE — the return legseparate record
- Milwaukee Mitchell International (MKE) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- MKE to ORD, a related route68.4%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- MKE to DEN, a related route78.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record81.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. MKE to LGA and LGA to MKE are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed MKE to LGA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.