Carrier route record
NKATL→MSY
Spirit Airlines · Atlanta to New Orleans
- Flights
- 180
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 4%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on ATL to MSY lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 180 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit 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
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 175 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.78%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.4%
Every carrier on ATL to MSY, 4,052 flights
These figures cover 180 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on ATL to MSY
Spirit flew 180 of the 4,052 flights on ATL to MSY, about 4% of it. Its 76.6% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four 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 Airlinesthin sample | 363 | 78.1% | 46 min | 0.28% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 180 | 76.6% | 76 min | 2.78% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 231 | 63.6% | 74 min | 1.30% | D |
Departure window
When Spirit runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am30 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm2 flights—
- 2pm–5pm32 flights87.1%
- 5pm–8pm20 flights—
- 8pm–5am96 flights72.8%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 87.1% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 72.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 96 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on ATL to MSY through the year
- Jul–Sep 202583 flights75.0%
- Oct–Dec 202590 flights80.9%
- Jan–Mar 20267 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 76.6% on time across 180 flights.
Split by quarter, Spirit on ATL to MSY logged 83 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 90 flights in Oct–Dec 2025 and 7 flights in Jan–Mar 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 76.6% annual figure is the one to use.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.4%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 3,130 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.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% 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 3,130 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 27 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 3,130 reported delay minutes.
46% 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 1,440 minutes out of 3,130, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.78%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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 183 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 180 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 Spirit on ATL to MSY
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 180 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 76.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 175 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to MSY, every carrier
- Spirit on MSY to ATL, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to MSY83.2%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to MSY78.1%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to MSY63.6%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.