Route reliability record
BOS→MSY
Boston to New Orleans
- Flights
- 863
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,367 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 rests on 863 BOS to MSY flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 374 at 82.7% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to MSY: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.8%, against 76.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 845 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.7% on time across 374 flights
These figures cover 863 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BOS to MSY
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.7% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 72.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 479 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 374 | 82.7% | 70 min | 2.14% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 479 | 72.0% | 79 min | 1.67% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 8 | 62.5% | 45 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 54 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Delta leads JetBlue by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on BOS to MSY
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Boston to New Orleans
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BOS → MSYBoston to New Orleans | Delta Air Lines | 80.9% | 82.7% | 2.14% | 11am–2pm, Mon | DL 1398 11:20 |
| 2. BOS → MSYBoston to New Orleans | JetBlue Airways | 70.8% | 72.0% | 1.67% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 401 07:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am79 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am158 flights84.1%
- 11am–2pm493 flights77.4%
- 2pm–5pm100 flights56.6%
- 5pm–8pm33 flights57.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.5% of the time, against 56.6% for the afternoon window. That is 32 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 493 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS to MSY by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On BOS to MSY, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 56.6%, a wide gap of 31.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.5%
- 8–11am84.1%
- 11am–2pm77.4%
- 2–5pm56.6%
- 5–8pm57.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 59.7% on time, against 91.5% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 97 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.8%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 32%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 15,038 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,367 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 61.9% on time across 861 flights, 15 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 15 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 863 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MSY after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 863 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 76.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 845 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to MSY questions
How often is BOS to 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 23.6% of the 863 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BOS to MSY?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.7% on time across 374 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 72.0%, a gap of 11 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 BOS to MSY?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 56.6%, 32 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 December delays on BOS to MSY?
December is the weakest month at 59.7% on time, compared with 91.5% in September. Across the year that is 32 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
- MSY to BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on BOS to MSY82.7%
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to MSY72.0%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ATL to MSY, a related route81.4%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.7%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record72.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record62.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. BOS to MSY and MSY to BOS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.