Guide
New Orleans airport delays: how reliable is flying out of MSY?
Flights out of New Orleans ran 78.0% on time over September 2025 to August 2026, rank 31 of 60. Summer evenings and Sundays are where MSY comes apart.
A Southwest departure from New Orleans before 8am is one of the more reliable things in American aviation. The same airline from the same airport after 5pm is one of the least. Between those two facts sits Louis Armstrong New Orleans International's headline: 78.0% of its 48,856 scheduled departures arrived on time over September 2025 to August 2026, rank 31 of the 60 airports with a page on this site and a shade above the national 77.3%.
The rest of the headline is unremarkable too. MSY cancelled 1.49% of scheduled flights against 1.89% nationally, 7.8% of departures arrived an hour or more late, and a late flight averaged 73 minutes behind. As everywhere on this site, the figures cover flights leaving the New Orleans airport, scored on arrival at their destination. An average this close to the middle usually means the airport is doing two very different things at different hours, and that is the story here.
An outstation for everyone, and Southwest's biggest customer base
No airline runs a hub at MSY. More than a third of departures belong to Southwest at New Orleans, and the rest split between Delta, American and United, each flying mostly to its own hubs, plus a thin layer of Spirit, JetBlue and Frontier.
MSY average 78.0%
60.0%90.0%
Departures from MSY. The dashed line is the airport average. Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, September 2025 to August 2026.
In this period United at MSY and Delta at MSY ran clearly ahead of the airport, while Southwest and American at MSY sat near its average and the low-cost carriers trailed. The two leaders share a shape: short hops to a single hub, MSY to Atlanta for Delta and MSY to Houston Intercontinental for United, with the first departure of the day leaving on an aircraft that spent the night in New Orleans.
The delay causes fit an outstation. Late-arriving aircraft account for 46% of MSY's delay minutes, against 40% nationally, while the air traffic system's share, 20%, sits at the national 21%.
At an airport where every aircraft arrives from somewhere else, most delay arrives with the aircraft.
Share of all delay minutes. Darker is a bigger share. Air traffic is the National Airspace System category; weather is extreme weather only.
| Late aircraft | Airline | Air traffic | Weather | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSY | 46 | 28 | 20 | 5 |
| US | 40 | 33 | 21 | 6 |
Shares of delay minutes reported by the airlines. Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, September 2025 to August 2026.
The day comes apart after 2pm
Departures between 5am and 8am ran 90.1% on time. Between 5pm and 8pm the figure was 65.2%. That 24.9-point slide compares with 21.3 points for all US flights, and the break comes early: the 2pm to 5pm window, at 70.8%, is already well below the national average for the day.
New Orleans (MSY)78.0% overall
Southwest Airlines at MSY75.8% overall
Delta Air Lines at MSY83.1% overall
All panels share one scale. Windows start at 5am, 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm and 8pm. Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, September 2025 to August 2026.
Two mechanisms stack up. Southwest flies its aircraft through several cities a day, so an evening departure from New Orleans carries every delay the aircraft collected since dawn. And from late spring through summer the Gulf Coast builds thunderstorms most afternoons, which slow arrivals into MSY and into the Texas and Florida airports its flights feed. Southwest's New Orleans curve is the steepest of the big four here, falling from the best dawn figure of the four to the worst evening one. Delta's falls far less, consistent with aircraft that shuttle between New Orleans and a single hub rather than working their way across the country. Of everything in the MSY data, that contrast is the one I would act on first.
The early flights are the ones to know. United 2744, the first departure to Houston, and Delta 1547, the dawn departure to Atlanta, both run among the most punctual flight numbers out of the city.
Summer, not Mardi Gras, is the season to fear
Figures are on-time percentages. Darkest column is the best, lightest the worst. Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, September 2025 to August 2026.
The worst stretch ran from May through July 2026: June 2026 at 70.0% and July 2026 at 69.3%, against 71.7% for all US flights that July. The best months were September 2025 at 85.9% and January 2026 at 84.9%. The gap between the airport's best and worst month was 16.6 points, wider than the national 11.7.
January needs a second look. Its on-time rate was among the year's best, but its cancellation rate was the airport's worst of the twelve months, which is the usual signature of winter weather: airlines cancel whole rotations on the bad days and the flights that do operate run cleanly. February 2026, the Carnival month, ran 82.8%, so the city's biggest visitor peak did not show up as an operational problem. One year is one sample, and a single hurricane landfall in August or September would rewrite those months entirely.
Sunday is the weak day
MSY's weekday spread is wide. Tuesday departures ran 83.8% on time and Wednesday 84.0%; Sunday managed 70.1%, a gap of 13.9 points between best and worst day against 8.1 nationally. New Orleans is a weekend city, and Sunday is when the weekend leaves: the fullest aircraft, the longest boarding and the least slack for a schedule already running behind. The best day of the week guide shows Sunday is the weakest day at most airports; at MSY the penalty is larger than usual.
The routes: Houston and Atlanta hold up, the Northeast does not
US average 77.3%
60.0%90.0%
The line under each bar is the route's cancellation rate. Dashed line: US average. Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, September 2025 to August 2026.
The two busiest hub runs were the steadiest: Atlanta at 82.2% and Houston Intercontinental at 83.2%, the latter cancelling only 0.38%. The carrier matters inside the Atlanta figure: Delta on MSY to Atlanta carries most of the route and most of its punctuality, while Frontier on the same route ran far behind.
Texas splits in an unexpected way. MSY to Dallas-Fort Worth ran 74.1% and cancelled 2.84%, among the weaker big routes from the city, while Southwest's MSY to Dallas Love Field ran 77.1%. Southwest's Houston run shows the direction effect: New Orleans to Hobby managed 75.9%, but Hobby to New Orleans ran 82.6%. The pipeline keeps the two directions of a route as separate records for exactly this reason: averaged together, they would describe neither flight. The Dallas and Houston guide explains why Hobby's own mornings are so strong.
The Northeast is where MSY routes break down. MSY to Boston ran 61.9% on time, rank 2,950 of 2,978 routes on this site, with 44% of its delay minutes coded to the air traffic system. MSY to Washington National ran 70.5%, MSY to LaGuardia 70.1% with 3.81% cancelled, and MSY to JFK cancelled 5.60%. These are flights into slot-controlled or flow-controlled airports where a ground delay programme holds the aircraft at the gate in New Orleans. The odd one out is MSY to Newark, at 86.3% one of the best big routes from the city despite its destination's reputation, with the caveat that it runs only a handful of daily flights.
If it were my ticket out of New Orleans
Take the first wave. Before 8am, MSY runs 90.1% on time. On Southwest in particular the dawn departure is the whole difference between a good and a bad airline here.
Avoid Sunday evening in summer. It combines the weakest day, the weakest window and the weakest months. If a weekend trip has to end on Sunday, fly out in the morning. With evening departures at 65.2% on time across the year, I would not put a tight connection behind a summer Sunday evening flight from MSY.
For Texas, prefer Houston Intercontinental to DFW. Intercontinental beat DFW on both on-time and cancellation rate from MSY in this period, and United runs it often enough that a cancellation can usually be rebooked the same day.
For New York, Boston or Washington, connect early or fly the morning nonstop. A connection through Atlanta or Charlotte on an early departure dodges the evening ground delay programmes that sink the direct routes. Check the buffer with the connection risk tool, and read the summer thunderstorm guide before booking anything between May and August.
Compare the fields: New Orleans (MSY) · Houston Intercontinental (IAH) · Atlanta (ATL) · Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) · Compare any US route