Route reliability record
STL→LGA
St. Louis to New York
- Flights
- 2,578
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 888 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% 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 2,578 STL to LGA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,176 at 79.6% on time.
Best time to fly STL to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.8%, against 74.0% 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
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,453 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.84%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
79.6% on time across 1,176 flights
These figures cover 2,578 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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 STL to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 79.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 69.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,395 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,176 | 79.6% | 87 min | 4.76% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,395 | 69.2% | 57 min | 3.08% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 66.7% | 26 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Republic Airways cancels 4.8% 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly St. Louis 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. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. STL → EWRSt. Louis to Newark | Republic Airways | 78.3% | 83.3% | 5.99% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 2. STL → LGASt. Louis to New York | Republic Airways | 75.8% | 79.6% | 4.76% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. STL → LGASt. Louis to New York | Southwest Airlines | 67.1% | 69.2% | 3.08% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 36 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am731 flights88.7%
- 8am–11am266 flights84.3%
- 11am–2pm608 flights70.9%
- 2pm–5pm543 flights68.0%
- 5pm–8pm198 flights56.1%
- 8pm–5am232 flights52.4%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.4% on time, against 88.7% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 731 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter STL 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 STL to LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 52.4%, a wide gap of 36.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.7%
- 8–11am84.3%
- 11am–2pm70.9%
- 2–5pm68.0%
- 5–8pm56.1%
- 8pm–5am52.4%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 63.5%. January is the strongest month at 86.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 23 points. March was the busiest month here, with 254 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.5%, a spread of 13 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 43,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% 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 16,000 minutes out of 43,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 43,117 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 88.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.84%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
9.7% 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 888 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 75.2% on time across 2,577 flights, within about 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 2,578 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 3.84% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 2,453 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
STL to LGA questions
How often is STL 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 26.0% of the 2,578 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on STL to LGA?
Republic Airways leads at 79.6% on time across 1,176 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 69.2%, a gap of 10 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 STL to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 52.4%, 36 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 STL to LGA?
March is the weakest month at 63.5% on time, compared with 86.2% in January. Across the year that is 23 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 STL — the return legseparate record
- St. Louis Lambert International (STL) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on STL to LGA79.6%
- Southwest Airlines on STL to LGA69.2%
- STL to DEN, a related route75.0%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- STL to ATL, a related route84.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record79.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record69.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record66.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. STL to LGA and LGA to STL 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.