Route reliability record
EWR→MSY
Newark to New Orleans
- Flights
- 1,212
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,167 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,212 EWR to MSY flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly EWR to MSY: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.7%, against 79.5% for the route overall.
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.
Key figures
On time
79.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,186 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.15%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
78.8% on time across 1,014 flights
These figures cover 1,212 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 EWR 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 160 | 88.2% | 49 min | 5.00% | A− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 58 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 1,014 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.68% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 33 | 59.4% | 112 min | 3.03% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on EWR 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Newark 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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. JFK → MSYNew York to New Orleans | Delta Air Lines | 79.4% | 83.6% | 5.00% | 8am–11am, Fri | DL 1368 08:00 |
| 2. EWR → MSYNewark to New Orleans | United Airlines | 77.5% | 78.8% | 1.68% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2468 12:29 |
| 3. JFK → MSYNew York to New Orleans | JetBlue Airways | 76.1% | 79.0% | 3.61% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. LGA → MSYNew York to New Orleans | Delta Air Lines | 76.1% | 79.6% | 4.45% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 2411 07:30 |
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am123 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am126 flights78.0%
- 11am–2pm371 flights83.7%
- 2pm–5pm362 flights74.3%
- 5pm–8pm25 flights—
- 8pm–5am205 flights75.6%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.2% of the time, against 74.3% for the afternoon window. That is 20 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 371 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 89.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.2%. 18 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 43% of the 18,000 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
43% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 17,704 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 94.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.15% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.6% 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 last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,167 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 84.5% on time across 1,213 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,212 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. April runs 89.9% on time and October 67.0%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 1,186 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to MSY questions
How often is EWR to MSY delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.5% of the 1,212 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is EWR to MSY compared with the rest of the country?
79.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on EWR to MSY?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 74.3%, 20 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 October delays on EWR to MSY?
October is the weakest month at 67.0% on time, compared with 89.9% in April. Across the year that is 23 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 EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on EWR to MSY88.2%
- United Airlines on EWR to MSY78.8%
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.1%
- ATL to MSY, a related route81.4%
- EWR to ATL, a related route77.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record88.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record80.0%
- United Airlines on-time record78.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. EWR to MSY and MSY to EWR 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.