Carrier route record

UAEWR→MSY

United Airlines · Newark to New Orleans

Flights: 1,036
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 85%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.

United on EWR to MSY lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 rests on 1,036 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate United on EWR to MSY from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

78.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,018 completed flights

Avg delay

79 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.74%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

79.7%

Every carrier on EWR to MSY, 1,218 flights

These figures cover 1,036 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

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Carrier by carrier

United against every carrier on EWR to MSY

United flew 1,036 of the 1,218 flights on EWR to MSY, most of the route. Its 78.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 89.0% to Spirit at 56.5%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on EWR to MSY
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	153	89.0%	51 min	5.23%	A−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	5	80.0%	58 min	0.00%	B+
United Airlines (this page)	1,036	78.9%	79 min	1.74%	B
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	24	56.5%	102 min	4.17%	D−

Flight by flight

United flight numbers on EWR to MSY

UA 246812:3379.5% · 270 flights

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Departure window

When United runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am121 flights95.0%
8am–11am78 flights73.1%
11am–2pm354 flights80.9%
2pm–5pm277 flights73.2%
5pm–8pm1 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 95.0% of the time, against 73.1% for the morning window. That is 22 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 354 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

United on EWR to MSY through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, December worst

December is the weak month at 61.8% on time, against 89.3% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. April was the busiest month here, with 112 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.6%, a spread of 18 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late United on EWR to MSY runs when it is late

United on EWR to MSY often beats the schedule: 442 of 1,018 completed flights, 43%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 215 late arrivals split 77 under half an hour, 53 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 85 an hour or more.

15+ min early442 flights43.4%
Within 15 min361 flights35.5%
15–29 min late77 flights7.6%
30–59 min late53 flights5.2%
1–2 hours late50 flights4.9%
2+ hours late35 flights3.4%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 1,018 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

57 of 215 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 27% of them. In the other direction, 57 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MSY.

The worst days

Worst days for United on EWR to MSY

The latest arrival of the period was on 27 August 2026, 10 hours 24 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in August 2026.

The latest arrivals of United on EWR to MSY in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
27 August 2026	10 hours 24 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
8 November 2025	7 hours 54 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
6 August 2026	7 hours	National Airspace System
5 August 2026	6 hours 46 minutes	Extreme weather
9 November 2025	6 hours 31 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why United runs late on this route

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 17,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
41%
National Airspace System
25%
Carrier
25%
Extreme weather
10%

41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 17,024 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 95.0% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.74% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

8.3% 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 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.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 86.5% on time across 1,035 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,036 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 United on EWR to MSY

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,036 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 78.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,018 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures