Carrier route record
WNFLL→MSY
Southwest Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to New Orleans
- Flights
- 365
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 26%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on FLL to MSY draws a C+. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 365 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Spirit Airlines, flew 488 at 69.9% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on FLL to MSY runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 105 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
66.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 365 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
62.8%
Every carrier on FLL to MSY, 1,403 flights
These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on FLL to MSY
Southwest flew 365 of the 1,403 flights on FLL to MSY, about 26% of it. Its 66.8% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 62.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 69.9% to JetBlue at 54.0%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 69.9% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 54.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 550 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 488 | 69.9% | 62 min | 4.10% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 365 | 66.8% | 47 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 550 | 54.0% | 70 min | 1.82% | F |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.1% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 36 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am22 flights—
- 8am–11am28 flights—
- 11am–2pm110 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm164 flights59.1%
- 5pm–8pm35 flights42.9%
- 8pm–5am6 flights—
Scale runs 35% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 42.9% on time, against 79.1% for the 11am–2pm 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 164 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on FLL to MSY through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 90.0% 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 35 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 58.5%, a spread of 25 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on FLL to MSY runs when it is late
The 121 late arrivals split 49 under half an hour, 46 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 26 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early51 flights14.0%
- Within 15 min193 flights52.9%
- 15–29 min late49 flights13.4%
- 30–59 min late46 flights12.6%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights5.2%
- 2+ hours late7 flights1.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 365 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 163 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 55 still arrived on time. 13 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on FLL to MSY
The latest arrival of the period was on 29 July 2026, 3 hours 12 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across July, August, September, November and April, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 29 July 2026 | 3 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 August 2026 | 2 hours 53 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 September 2025 | 2 hours 39 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 8 November 2025 | 2 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 April 2026 | 2 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 5,716 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,716 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 5,716 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.1% 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 roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 673 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 73.5% on time across 365 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 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 Southwest on FLL to MSY
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 365 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 66.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 365 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to MSY, every carrier
- Southwest on MSY to FLL, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to MSY69.9%
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to MSY54.0%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.