Carrier route record
WNATL→MSY
Southwest Airlines · Atlanta to New Orleans
- Flights
- 363
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on ATL to MSY lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on ATL to MSY from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 361 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.28%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.4%
Every carrier on ATL to MSY, 4,052 flights
These figures cover 363 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on ATL to MSY
Southwest flew 363 of the 4,052 flights on ATL to MSY, about 9% of it. Its 78.1% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 100.0% to Frontier at 63.6%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,275 | 83.2% | 58 min | 1.53% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 363 | 78.1% | 46 min | 0.28% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 180 | 76.6% | 76 min | 2.78% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 231 | 63.6% | 74 min | 1.30% | D |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 363 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Southwest's ATL to MSY record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 78.1% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
Southwest on ATL to MSY through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 96.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 33 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.5%. 29 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 3,605 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.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
58% 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 3,605 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 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 3,605 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.28%, 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% 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 425 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.8% on time across 361 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 363 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on ATL to MSY
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 363 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 78.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 361 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to MSY, every carrier
- Southwest on MSY to ATL, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to MSY83.2%
- Spirit Airlines on ATL to MSY76.6%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to MSY63.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.