Route reliability record
IAH→MSY
Houston to New Orleans
- Flights
- 2,911
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 305 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,911 IAH to MSY flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAH to MSY: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.8%, against 83.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 65 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,905 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
83.9% on time across 2,739 flights
These figures cover 2,911 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on IAH 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 87.4% | 68 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 2,739 | 83.9% | 60 min | 0.11% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 27 | 76.9% | 195 min | 3.70% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 42 | 71.4% | 149 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on IAH 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Houston 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAH → MSYHouston to New Orleans | United Airlines | 83.8% | 83.9% | 0.11% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 491 07:20 |
| 2. HOU → MSYHouston to New Orleans | Southwest Airlines | 82.4% | 82.6% | 0.22% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am344 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am391 flights85.7%
- 11am–2pm372 flights86.8%
- 2pm–5pm595 flights84.0%
- 5pm–8pm477 flights77.9%
- 8pm–5am732 flights81.0%
Scale runs 70% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.2% of the time, against 77.9% for the evening window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 732 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAH to MSY by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On IAH to MSY, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 77.9%, a wide gap of 14.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.2%
- 8–11am85.7%
- 11am–2pm86.8%
- 2–5pm84.0%
- 5–8pm77.9%
- 8pm–5am81.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
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.
June is the worst month at 68.4% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 91.8%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 286 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.4%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 30,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 40%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 30,173 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.14%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.6% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 305 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 83.2% on time across 2,910 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,911 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. September runs 91.8% on time and June 68.4%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,905 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAH to MSY questions
How often is IAH to MSY delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.2% of the 2,911 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is IAH to MSY compared with the rest of the country?
83.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IAH to MSY?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 77.9%, 14 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 June delays on IAH to MSY?
June is the weakest month at 68.4% on time, compared with 91.8% in September. 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 IAH — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on IAH to MSY87.4%
- United Airlines on IAH to MSY83.9%
- IAH to ORD, a related route75.1%
- ATL to MSY, a related route81.4%
- IAH to DFW, a related route76.4%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record87.4%
- United Airlines on-time record83.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record76.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. IAH to MSY and MSY to IAH 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.