Route reliability record
PBI→LGA
West Palm Beach to New York
- Flights
- 3,199
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,035 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 seven flights in ten 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 3,199 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,553 at 72.4% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 72.4% on time across 1,553 flights.
Key figures
On time
68.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,037 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.53%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
72.4% on time across 1,553 flights
These figures cover 3,199 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.0% 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 PBI to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 72.4% of the time; American Airlines manages 57.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 405 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,553 | 72.4% | 66 min | 4.44% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 126 | 67.8% | 125 min | 5.56% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,115 | 67.7% | 83 min | 4.66% | C− |
| American Airlines | 405 | 57.9% | 97 min | 4.20% | D− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.7% 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 39 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am563 flights92.0%
- 8am–11am293 flights80.9%
- 11am–2pm593 flights72.2%
- 2pm–5pm873 flights61.2%
- 5pm–8pm702 flights52.6%
- 8pm–5am175 flights62.3%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.6% on time, against 92.0% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 873 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 86.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 339 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 74.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.0%. 13 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 76,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% 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 76,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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. The split is drawn from 75,837 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.53%, against 1.81% 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. 14.0% 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.
The 1,035 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 70.3% on time across 3,199 flights, within 2 points 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 3,199 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 4.53% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 3,037 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PBI to LGA questions
How often is PBI 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 31.2% of the 3,199 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PBI to LGA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 72.4% on time across 1,553 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 57.9%, a gap of 15 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 PBI to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 52.6%, 39 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 PBI to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 53.1% on time, compared with 86.5% in September. Across the year that is 33 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 PBI — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record67.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record67.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. PBI to LGA and LGA to PBI 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.