Route reliability record

DEN→MSY

Denver to New Orleans

Flights: 2,270
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 1,062 mi
Carriers: 3

This route lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,270 flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,017 at 84.4% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

76.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,257 completed flights

Avg delay

55 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.48%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

United

84.4% on time across 1,017 flights

These figures cover 2,270 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MSY

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 84.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 68.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,058 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DEN to MSY
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	1,017	84.4%	59 min	0.20%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	195	82.2%	68 min	2.05%	B
Southwest Airlines	1,058	68.6%	52 min	0.47%	C+

The spread between United and Southwest is 16 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 16 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 46 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am75 flights94.6%
8am–11am746 flights87.7%
11am–2pm442 flights83.3%
2pm–5pm230 flights58.3%
5pm–8pm632 flights70.5%
8pm–5am145 flights49.0%

Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 49.0% on time, against 94.6% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 746 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 37 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.November best, July worst

July is the worst month at 52.2% on time, 37 points below November, the best at 89.3%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 229 flights.

Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 79.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.0%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 29,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
54%
Carrier
29%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
0%

54% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 54 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 28,737 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 94.6% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.48%, 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 actually costs

7.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the about 55 minutes kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 1,062 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.8% on time across 2,270 flights, 3 points above 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 3 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,270 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.

What to do with this

Booking this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 89.3% on time and July 52.2%, a swing of 37 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,257 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

DEN to MSY questions

How often is DEN to MSY delayed?

About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.2% of the 2,270 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.

Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MSY?

United Airlines leads at 84.4% on time across 1,017 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 68.6%, a gap of 16 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 DEN to MSY?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 49.0%, 46 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 July delays on DEN to MSY?

July is the weakest month at 52.2% on time, compared with 89.3% in November. Across the year that is 37 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. DEN to MSY and MSY to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures