Route reliability record
ORF→LGA
Norfolk to New York
- Flights
- 1,230
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 296 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 1,230 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 91.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.8%, against 74.3% 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
74.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,150 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.18%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
74.3% on time across 1,230 flights
These figures cover 1,230 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 | 1,230 | 74.3% | 89 min | 6.18% | C− |
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.
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 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 → EWRNorfolk to Newark | Republic Airways | 75.1% | 80.8% | 7.07% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORF → JFKNorfolk to New York | Republic Airways | 72.4% | 79.2% | 8.62% | 5am–8am, Mon | YX 4359 17:32 |
| 3. ORF → LGANorfolk to New York | Republic Airways | 69.7% | 74.3% | 6.18% | 8am–11am, Tue | 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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am320 flights84.4%
- 8am–11am103 flights91.1%
- 11am–2pm367 flights73.7%
- 2pm–5pm143 flights66.2%
- 5pm–8pm297 flights60.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.9% on time, against 91.1% 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 367 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORF 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 ORF to LGA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.9%, a wide gap of 30.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am84.4%
- 8–11am91.1%
- 11am–2pm73.7%
- 2–5pm66.2%
- 5–8pm60.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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%. June is the strongest month at 85.9%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 22 points. September was the busiest month here, with 147 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.1%, a spread of 8 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 26,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 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 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 26,326 reported delay minutes.
42% 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 11,000 minutes out of 26,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 6.18%, against 1.89% 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
12.2% 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.
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 74.0% on time across 1,231 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 1,230 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 6.18% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,150 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 25.7% of the 1,230 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is ORF to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
74.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C− 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 91.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.9%, 30 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 85.9% in June. 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 route85.1%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ORF to CLT, a related route81.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record74.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.