Carrier performance at one airport
WN→MSY
Southwest Airlines at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International
- Departures
- 18,310
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 20
- Rank here
- #7 of 12
Southwest Airlines at New Orleans lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 18,310 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 7,577 at 84.2% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Southwest Airlines runs 2 points behind the 78.5% 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.
Key figures
On time
76.7%
18,138 completed departures
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
0.67%
At MSY, this carrier only
Rank here
#7
Of 12 carriers clearing the floor at MSY
These figures cover 18,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.2% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 68.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,311 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 7,577 | 84.2% | 74 min | 2.09% | B |
| United Airlines | 6,803 | 83.9% | 74 min | 0.73% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 807 | 81.6% | 74 min | 2.97% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 630 | 79.0% | 84 min | 0.63% | B+ |
| Envoy Air | 813 | 78.5% | 71 min | 1.72% | B |
| American Airlines | 7,506 | 76.7% | 102 min | 2.21% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 18,310 | 76.7% | 54 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 2,961 | 76.4% | 74 min | 2.70% | B |
| Alaska Airlines | 736 | 73.8% | 52 min | 0.95% | C+ |
| PSA Airlines | 892 | 72.2% | 122 min | 5.61% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 943 | 69.6% | 89 min | 1.91% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,311 | 68.5% | 90 min | 2.29% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.6% 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.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSY to DAL · Dallas | 2,286 | 76.9% | 58 min | 1.18% | B |
| MSY to HOU · Houston | 2,277 | 76.3% | 51 min | 0.57% | B+ |
| MSY to MCO · Orlando | 1,584 | 77.1% | 58 min | 0.51% | B+ |
| MSY to AUS · Austin | 1,541 | 77.5% | 54 min | 0.45% | B+ |
| MSY to BNA · Nashville | 1,430 | 78.5% | 49 min | 0.63% | B+ |
| MSY to DEN · Denver | 1,059 | 73.9% | 53 min | 0.28% | C+ |
| MSY to BWI · Baltimore | 1,030 | 81.1% | 56 min | 1.55% | B |
| MSY to MDW · Chicago | 1,018 | 77.1% | 53 min | 1.08% | B |
| MSY to TPA · Tampa | 854 | 78.9% | 62 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| MSY to STL · St. Louis | 731 | 81.8% | 51 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| MSY to LAS · Las Vegas | 717 | 79.5% | 50 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| MSY to DCA · Washington | 706 | 68.2% | 67 min | 0.99% | C+ |
| MSY to PHX · Phoenix | 550 | 78.4% | 50 min | 0.18% | B+ |
| MSY to MCI · Kansas City | 372 | 81.1% | 56 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| MSY to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 368 | 74.0% | 46 min | 0.27% | C+ |
| MSY to LAX · Los Angelesthin sample | 361 | 69.4% | 51 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| MSY to ATL · Atlantathin sample | 361 | 70.8% | 46 min | 0.28% | C+ |
| MSY to SAT · San Antoniothin sample | 350 | 77.4% | 48 min | 0.29% | B+ |
| MSY to SAN · San Diegothin sample | 345 | 70.1% | 49 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| MSY to LGA · New Yorkthin sample | 333 | 72.7% | 53 min | 2.40% | 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 34 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am4,288 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am3,199 flights88.1%
- 11am–2pm2,512 flights77.8%
- 2pm–5pm3,857 flights66.2%
- 5pm–8pm3,153 flights59.4%
- 8pm–5am1,301 flights63.5%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.4% on time, against 93.8% 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 4,288 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
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
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% 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 228,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 227,981 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.67%, below the national 1.81% 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.
6.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the about 55 minutes kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
18,310 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. 18,138 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.3% of the 18,310 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Southwest Airlines at MSY?
Delta Air Lines leads at 84.2% on time across 7,577 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 68.5%, a gap of 16 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 93.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.4%, 34 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.
Related
Where to go next
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) all carriers
- MSY to DAL route record76.9%
- MSY to HOU route record76.3%
- MSY to MCO route record77.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.