Route reliability record
DEN→MSY
Denver to New Orleans
- Flights
- 2,279
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,062 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,279 DEN to MSY flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,009 at 85.4% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to MSY: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.2%, against 77.3% 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
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,260 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
85.4% on time across 1,009 flights
These figures cover 2,279 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 85.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 68.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,060 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,009 | 85.4% | 62 min | 0.20% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 210 | 81.0% | 70 min | 2.38% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,060 | 68.8% | 52 min | 0.66% | C+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN 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 Denver 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. DEN → MSYDenver to New Orleans | United Airlines | 85.2% | 85.4% | 0.20% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2273 09:50 |
| 2. DEN → MSYDenver to New Orleans | Southwest Airlines | 68.3% | 68.8% | 0.66% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 40 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am75 flights94.6%
- 8am–11am709 flights89.0%
- 11am–2pm452 flights82.2%
- 2pm–5pm241 flights57.3%
- 5pm–8pm685 flights70.8%
- 8pm–5am117 flights54.8%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.8% 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 709 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN 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 DEN to MSY, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 54.8%, a wide gap of 39.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.6%
- 8–11am89.0%
- 11am–2pm82.2%
- 2–5pm57.3%
- 5–8pm70.8%
- 8pm–5am54.8%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
August is the worst month at 61.0% on time, 28 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.3%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% 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 53 to one. The split is drawn from 28,816 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 0.61%, below the national 1.89% 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
7.3% 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 about an hour, 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.
The return leg runs 79.5% 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 2,279 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. November runs 89.3% on time and August 61.0%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,260 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to MSY questions
How often is DEN to MSY delayed?
Roughly 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 22.7% of the 2,279 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MSY?
United Airlines leads at 85.4% on time across 1,009 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 68.8%, a gap of 17 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 54.8%, 40 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 August delays on DEN to MSY?
August is the weakest month at 61.0% on time, compared with 89.3% in November. Across the year that is 28 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 DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- United Airlines on DEN to MSY85.4%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to MSY81.0%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to MSY68.8%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ATL to MSY, a related route81.4%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- United Airlines on-time record85.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record81.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record68.8%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
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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.