Route reliability record
ORD→LGA
Chicago to New York
- Flights
- 11,634
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 733 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 11,634 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,298 at 71.0% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 71.0% on time across 1,298 flights.
Key figures
On time
67.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 11,037 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.51%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Republic
71.0% on time across 1,298 flights
These figures cover 12,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.7% 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 ORD to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 71.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 63.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,937 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,298 | 71.0% | 69 min | 8.63% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,289 | 69.5% | 103 min | 4.33% | C− |
| United Airlines | 4,658 | 67.6% | 81 min | 3.16% | C− |
| American Airlines | 2,937 | 63.7% | 81 min | 4.19% | D− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 92 | 61.0% | 69 min | 16.30% | D− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 360 | 58.5% | 99 min | 8.06% | D− |
Republic Airways cancels 8.6% 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.
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 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am2,013 flights84.6%
- 8am–11am2,314 flights76.8%
- 11am–2pm2,060 flights66.0%
- 2pm–5pm1,976 flights57.7%
- 5pm–8pm2,406 flights53.1%
- 8pm–5am865 flights60.4%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.1% on time, against 84.6% 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.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 54.6%. February is the strongest month at 80.1%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 25 points.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 72.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.5%. 12 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 308,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 308,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
36% 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 111,000 minutes out of 308,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.51%, against 1.80% nationally. That is roughly 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 15.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 733 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 67.2% on time across 11,633 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.
The sample behind these figures is 11,634 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.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.51% 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.
Common questions
ORD to LGA questions
How often is ORD to LGA delayed?
About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 33.0% of the 11,634 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to LGA?
Republic Airways leads at 71.0% on time across 1,298 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 63.7%, a gap of 7 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 ORD to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.1%, 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 ORD to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 54.6% on time, compared with 80.1% in February. Across the year that is 25 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on-time record71.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record69.5%
- United Airlines on-time record67.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ORD to LGA and LGA to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.