Route reliability record
ORD→LGA
Chicago to New York
- Flights
- 11,630
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 733 mi
- Carriers
- 6
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 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 11,630 ORD to LGA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,284 at 71.5% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.9% of the time and Saturday flights 71.0%, against 66.6% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 71.5% on time across 1,284 flights.
Key figures
On time
66.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 10,927 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.29%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
71.5% on time across 1,284 flights
These figures cover 12,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.7% 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 ORD to LGA
The four carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,284 | 71.5% | 69 min | 8.64% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,309 | 68.7% | 96 min | 5.89% | C− |
| United Airlines | 4,671 | 66.1% | 83 min | 3.98% | C− |
| American Airlines | 2,990 | 65.6% | 80 min | 4.65% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 92 | 61.0% | 69 min | 16.30% | D− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 284 | 48.8% | 101 min | 9.86% | F− |
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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD 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.
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 Chicago 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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → JFKChicago to New York | Republic Airways | 74.6% | 77.5% | 3.73% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → EWRChicago to Newark | Envoy Air | 73.5% | 78.0% | 5.82% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → HPNChicago to White Plains | Envoy Air | 73.4% | 76.3% | 3.78% | 8am–11am, Sat | MQ 3812 08:10 |
| 4. ORD → JFKChicago to New York | JetBlue Airways | 72.0% | 78.2% | 7.90% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. ORD → EWRChicago to Newark | United Airlines | 69.9% | 72.0% | 2.85% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 563 07:10 |
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 32 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,942 flights83.9%
- 8am–11am2,363 flights76.9%
- 11am–2pm2,071 flights66.5%
- 2pm–5pm2,042 flights56.5%
- 5pm–8pm2,410 flights51.8%
- 8pm–5am802 flights61.4%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.8% on time, against 83.9% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 2,410 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 83.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 51.8%, a wide gap of 32.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am83.9%
- 8–11am76.9%
- 11am–2pm66.5%
- 2–5pm56.5%
- 5–8pm51.8%
- 8pm–5am61.4%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
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. October was the busiest month here, with 1,025 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 71.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.5%, a spread of 12 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 306,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 306,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 305,682 reported delay minutes.
35% 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 108,000 minutes out of 306,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
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
15.7% 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 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.
The return leg runs 66.7% on time across 11,630 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 11,630 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 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 10,927 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to LGA questions
How often is ORD 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 33.4% of the 11,630 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 71.5% on time across 1,284 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 65.6%, a gap of 6 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 83.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 51.8%, 32 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 ORD to LGA71.5%
- Delta Air Lines on ORD to LGA68.7%
- United Airlines on ORD to LGA66.1%
- American Airlines on ORD to LGA65.6%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to LGA48.8%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to LAX, a related route72.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record71.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record68.7%
- United Airlines on-time record66.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
Embed ORD 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.