Carrier performance at one airport

WN→MSY

Southwest Airlines at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International

Departures: 18,327
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Routes: 20
Rank here: #8 of 12

Southwest Airlines at New Orleans sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 18,327 flights, of which United Airlines flew 6,748 at 84.4% on time.

Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs 2 points behind the 77.9% weighted average across all carriers at MSY. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.

On time

75.8%

18,153 completed departures

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

0.61%

At MSY, this carrier only

Rank here

Of 12 carriers clearing the floor at MSY

These figures cover 18,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 2 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.

Against the competition

Every carrier at MSY, ranked

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 84.4% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 67.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,443 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance of all carriers departing MSY
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	6,748	84.4%	78 min	0.71%	B+
Delta Air Lines	7,529	83.1%	78 min	2.15%	B
Republic Airways	770	80.6%	66 min	3.25%	B−
Envoy Air	783	80.1%	64 min	1.53%	B
SkyWest Airlines	570	77.5%	86 min	0.70%	B+
Spirit Airlines	2,250	76.7%	73 min	3.11%	B−
American Airlines	7,594	76.5%	105 min	2.11%	B
Southwest Airlines (this page)	18,327	75.8%	54 min	0.61%	B+
Alaska Airlines	729	74.5%	54 min	0.96%	C+
PSA Airlines	895	74.4%	123 min	6.26%	C−
Frontier Airlines	1,117	67.5%	89 min	2.42%	C
JetBlue Airways	1,443	67.2%	85 min	3.05%	C−

PSA Airlines cancels 6.3% 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.

Route by route

Where Southwest Airlines flies from MSY

Southwest Airlines operates 20 routes out of MSY with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.

Southwest Airlines routes from MSY
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
MSY to DAL · Dallas	2,279	77.1%	57 min	1.14%	B
MSY to HOU · Houston	2,276	75.9%	50 min	0.66%	B+
MSY to MCO · Orlando	1,596	77.5%	57 min	0.50%	B+
MSY to AUS · Austin	1,539	76.5%	54 min	0.39%	B+
MSY to BNA · Nashville	1,451	76.2%	47 min	0.48%	B+
MSY to DEN · Denver	1,061	73.3%	53 min	0.19%	C+
MSY to BWI · Baltimore	1,027	79.0%	53 min	1.07%	B
MSY to MDW · Chicago	1,014	73.7%	53 min	1.08%	C
MSY to TPA · Tampa	856	77.9%	66 min	0.58%	B+
MSY to LAS · Las Vegas	779	78.6%	51 min	0.00%	B+
MSY to STL · St. Louis	733	82.6%	51 min	0.27%	B+
MSY to DCA · Washington	704	67.8%	66 min	0.85%	C+
MSY to PHX · Phoenix	549	78.8%	46 min	0.18%	B+
MSY to FLL · Fort Lauderdale	365	73.5%	44 min	0.27%	C+
MSY to MCI · Kansas Citythin sample	358	79.8%	53 min	0.28%	B+
MSY to LAX · Los Angelesthin sample	356	65.4%	55 min	0.00%	C+
MSY to SAN · San Diegothin sample	342	65.7%	52 min	0.00%	C+
MSY to SAT · San Antoniothin sample	341	76.2%	47 min	0.29%	B+
MSY to ATL · Atlantathin sample	340	67.0%	49 min	0.29%	C+
MSY to LGA · New Yorkthin sample	333	72.7%	52 min	2.10%	C

Departure window

Best time of day for this operation

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 36 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am4,374 flights93.7%
8am–11am3,144 flights87.5%
11am–2pm2,518 flights77.5%
2pm–5pm3,837 flights64.7%
5pm–8pm3,156 flights57.9%
8pm–5am1,298 flights60.8%

Scale runs 50% to 100%.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.9% on time, against 93.7% 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 4,374 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Seasonal pattern

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, June worst

June is the worst month at 65.3% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 86.5%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 1,759 flights.

Delay causes

What holds this operation up

Late-arriving aircraft
54%
Carrier
24%
National Airspace System
18%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 235,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 234,786 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

6.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

18,327 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.5% on time and June 65.3%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 18,153 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

Southwest Airlines at MSY

How often is Southwest Airlines at MSY 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 24.2% of the 18,327 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.

Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at MSY?

United Airlines leads at 84.4% on time across 6,748 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 67.2%, a gap of 17 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 Southwest Airlines at MSY?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.9%, 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 June delays on Southwest Airlines at MSY?

June is the weakest month at 65.3% on time, compared with 86.5% in September. Across the year that is 21 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures