Carrier route record
UAEWR→MSY
United Airlines · Newark to New Orleans
- Flights
- 1,014
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 84%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on EWR to MSY lands a B, about a point 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 1,014 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 997 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.68%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.5%
Every carrier on EWR to MSY, 1,212 flights
These figures cover 1,014 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
United against every carrier on EWR to MSY
United flew 1,014 of the 1,212 flights on EWR to MSY, most of the route. Its 78.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 88.2% to Spirit at 59.4%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 160 | 88.2% | 49 min | 5.00% | A− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 58 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,014 | 78.8% | 73 min | 1.68% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 33 | 59.4% | 112 min | 3.03% | D− |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on EWR to MSY
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 26 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–8am96 flights95.8%
- 8am–11am78 flights73.1%
- 11am–2pm364 flights83.6%
- 2pm–5pm270 flights70.3%
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am205 flights75.6%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.8% of the time, against 70.3% for the afternoon window. That is 26 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 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on EWR to MSY through the year
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 88.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.7%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 15,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
46% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 15,298 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 95.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.68% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.7% 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 84.6% on time across 1,014 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,014 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. 1,014 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 78.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 997 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to MSY, every carrier
- United on MSY to EWR, the return leg
- Republic Airways on EWR to MSY88.2%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.