Route reliability record
DAL→MSY
Dallas to New Orleans
- Flights
- 2,281
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 437 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,281 DAL to MSY flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly DAL to MSY: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.8%, against 75.6% 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
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,251 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.6% on time across 2,281 flights
These figures cover 2,281 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DAL to MSY
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,281 | 75.6% | 54 min | 1.14% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas to New Orleans
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DAL → MSYDallas to New Orleans | Southwest Airlines | 74.7% | 75.6% | 1.14% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. DFW → MSYDallas-Fort Worth to New Orleans | American Airlines | 65.9% | 67.7% | 2.62% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1455 20:00 |
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 35 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am373 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am368 flights88.7%
- 11am–2pm409 flights75.8%
- 2pm–5pm407 flights71.3%
- 5pm–8pm384 flights63.9%
- 8pm–5am340 flights59.2%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.2% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 409 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DAL 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 DAL to MSY, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 59.2%, a wide gap of 34.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.8%
- 8–11am88.7%
- 11am–2pm75.8%
- 2–5pm71.3%
- 5–8pm63.9%
- 8pm–5am59.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
June is the worst month at 61.5% on time, 24 points below January, the best at 85.3%. 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 224 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.8% on time and Thursday the weakest at 69.2%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 29,498 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 93.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 437 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 77.1% on time across 2,279 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,281 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MSY after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 85.3% on time and June 61.5%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,251 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DAL to MSY questions
How often is DAL 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 24.4% of the 2,281 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is DAL to MSY compared with the rest of the country?
75.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DAL to MSY?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.2%, 35 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 DAL to MSY?
June is the weakest month at 61.5% on time, compared with 85.3% in January. Across the year that is 24 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 DAL — the return legseparate record
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.8%
- ATL to MSY, a related route81.4%
- DAL to ATL, a related route78.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DAL to MSY and MSY to DAL 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.