Route reliability record
ORF→LGA
Norfolk to New York
- Flights
- 1,381
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 296 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 1,381 ORF to LGA flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ORF to LGA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.2%, against 75.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
75.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,294 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.15%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
76.0% on time across 1,376 flights
These figures cover 1,381 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 ORF 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 | 1,376 | 76.0% | 81 min | 6.18% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 60.0% | 40 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ORF 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Norfolk 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORF → JFKNorfolk to New York | Republic Airways | 76.7% | 81.8% | 6.29% | 5am–8am, Mon | YX 4359 17:32 |
| 2. ORF → EWRNorfolk to Newark | Republic Airways | 75.1% | 79.8% | 5.90% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 3. ORF → LGANorfolk to New York | Republic Airways | 71.3% | 76.0% | 6.18% | 8am–11am, Tue (route) | YX 4621 12:50 |
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 28 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–8am318 flights88.0%
- 8am–11am133 flights91.5%
- 11am–2pm432 flights72.9%
- 2pm–5pm201 flights69.2%
- 5pm–8pm297 flights63.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.6% on time, against 91.5% for the 8am–11am 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 432 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 November, when the on-time rate falls to 63.9%. August is the strongest month at 86.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 22 points. July was the busiest month here, with 174 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.9%. 6 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. National Airspace System accounts for 48% of the 25,000 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.
- 48%National Airspace System
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
48% 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 12,000 minutes out of 25,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 25,027 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 6.15%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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.
At 296 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 76.4% on time across 1,382 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 1,381 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 6.15% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,294 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORF to LGA questions
How often is ORF to LGA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.1% of the 1,381 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is ORF to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
75.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORF to LGA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.6%, 28 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 November delays on ORF to LGA?
November is the weakest month at 63.9% on time, compared with 86.0% in August. Across the year that is 22 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 ORF — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- ORF to ATL, a related route85.6%
- ORD to LGA, a related route67.3%
- ORF to CLT, a related route82.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record60.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. ORF to LGA and LGA to ORF 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.