Carrier route record
NKDFW→MSY
Spirit Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to New Orleans
- Flights
- 184
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 7%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on DFW to MSY sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 184 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on DFW to MSY runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 54 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 176 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
67.6%
Every carrier on DFW to MSY, 2,798 flights
These figures cover 184 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% 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 DFW to MSY
Spirit flew 184 of the 2,798 flights on DFW to MSY, about 7% of it. Its 72.2% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 67.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 85.3% to PSA at 57.1%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 35 | 85.3% | 125 min | 2.86% | A |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 211 | 75.9% | 40 min | 2.84% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 184 | 72.2% | 75 min | 4.35% | C− |
| American Airlines | 2,345 | 66.3% | 76 min | 3.24% | C− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 57.1% | 86 min | 8.70% | D− |
Departure window
When Spirit runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 184 flights.
- 5am–8am9 flights—
- 8am–11am104 flights70.8%
- 11am–2pm43 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm14 flights—
- 5pm–8pm10 flights—
- 8pm–5am4 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 79.1% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 70.8%. 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 104 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on DFW to MSY through the year
- Jul–Sep 202545 flights75.6%
- Oct–Dec 202544 flights72.7%
- Jan–Mar 202673 flights72.3%
- Apr–Jun 202622 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 80%. 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 72.2% on time across 184 flights.
Quarter by quarter Spirit on DFW to MSY held fairly steady: 75.6% in Jul–Sep 2025, 72.7% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 72.3% in Jan–Mar 2026. A spread of 3 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 60.5%. 25 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 3,694 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
48% 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 3,694 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 48 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 3,694 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,360 of the 3,694 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 4.35%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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. 12.5% 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 448 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 72.4% on time across 189 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 184 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 DFW to MSY
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.35% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 176 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to MSY, every carrier
- Spirit on MSY to DFW, the return leg
- Envoy Air on DFW to MSY75.9%
- American Airlines on DFW to MSY66.3%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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.