Route reliability record
MKE→LGA
Milwaukee to New York
- Flights
- 810
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 738 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than 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 810 MKE to LGA flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Best time to fly MKE to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.3% of the time and Thursday flights 89.5%, against 82.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 50 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 755 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
82.6% on time across 810 flights
These figures cover 810 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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 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 | 810 | 82.6% | 89 min | 6.54% | B− |
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 → LGAMilwaukee to New York | Republic Airways | 77.2% | 82.6% | 6.54% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. MKE → EWRMilwaukee to Newark | Republic Airways | 73.8% | 77.7% | 5.06% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 3510 18:09 |
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 14 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–8am216 flights88.3%
- 8am–11am189 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm72 flights82.6%
- 2pm–5pm144 flights81.2%
- 5pm–8pm189 flights74.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.3% of the time, against 74.7% for the evening window. That is 14 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 216 flights scheduled in it.
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. March was the busiest month here, with 107 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 89.5% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 78.6%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 43%Carrier
- 32%National Airspace System
- 13%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 11,676 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 5,065 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 6.54%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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
8.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
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. 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 runs 83.1% on time across 810 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. 810 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 6.54% 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. 755 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 six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.4% of the 810 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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?
82.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 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 88.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.7%, 14 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
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- MKE to ORD, a related route67.4%
- ORD to LGA, a related route67.3%
- MKE to DEN, a related route78.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 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.
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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.