Route reliability record
PIT→EWR
Pittsburgh to Newark
- Flights
- 1,836
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 319 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five arrive on time, worth an A− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,836 PIT to EWR flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Best time to fly PIT to EWR: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.8%, against 86.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 92 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,768 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.65%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
87.5% on time across 1,752 flights
These figures cover 1,836 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 15 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PIT to EWR
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 | 1,752 | 87.5% | 64 min | 3.65% | A− |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 85.7% | 73 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 77 | 70.3% | 95 min | 3.90% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on PIT to EWR
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 Pittsburgh to Newark
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PIT → JFKPittsburgh to New York | Republic Airways | 85.6% | 87.8% | 2.52% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4568 09:22 |
| 2. PIT → EWRPittsburgh to Newark | Republic Airways | 84.3% | 87.5% | 3.65% | 8am–11am, Wed (route) | YX 3560 09:00 |
| 3. PIT → JFKPittsburgh to New York | JetBlue Airways | 79.5% | 84.7% | 6.17% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1198 06:00 |
| 4. PIT → LGAPittsburgh to New York | Republic Airways | 77.7% | 81.7% | 4.89% | 5am–8am, Fri | YX 5753 06:05 |
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 25 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–8am521 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am518 flights93.8%
- 11am–2pm376 flights86.1%
- 2pm–5pm81 flights76.2%
- 5pm–8pm315 flights68.4%
- 8pm–5am25 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 93.8% of the time, against 68.4% for the evening window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 521 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
December is the weak month at 79.3% on time, against 94.9% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 188 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 83.1%. 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 59% of the 16,000 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.
- 59%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
59% 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 9,293 minutes out of 16,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 15,669 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.65%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 319 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.4% on time across 1,836 flights, 5 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,836 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 EWR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.65% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 1,768 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PIT to EWR questions
How often is PIT to EWR delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.2% of the 1,836 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is PIT to EWR compared with the rest of the country?
86.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PIT to EWR?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.4%, 25 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 December delays on PIT to EWR?
December is the weakest month at 79.3% on time, compared with 94.9% in May. Across the year that is 16 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
- EWR to PIT — the return legseparate record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- PIT to ORD, a related route78.6%
- MCO to EWR, a related route73.8%
- PIT to LGA, a related route80.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record87.5%
- United Airlines on-time record85.7%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record70.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. PIT to EWR and EWR to PIT 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.