Route reliability record
JFK→MSY
New York to New Orleans
- Flights
- 1,142
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,182 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,142 JFK to MSY flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 720 at 81.6% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to MSY: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.8%, against 79.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,081 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.34%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
81.6% on time across 720 flights
These figures cover 1,142 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to MSY
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 720 | 81.6% | 79 min | 5.42% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 415 | 76.3% | 74 min | 5.30% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 28.6% | 56 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Delta Air Lines cancels 5.4% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK 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 New York 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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → MSYNewark to New Orleans | United Airlines | 77.5% | 78.9% | 1.74% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2468 12:33 |
| 2. JFK → MSYNew York to New Orleans | Delta Air Lines | 77.2% | 81.6% | 5.42% | 8am–11am, Fri | DL 1368 08:00 |
| 3. LGA → MSYNew York to New Orleans | Delta Air Lines | 75.3% | 79.1% | 4.79% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 2411 07:30 |
| 4. JFK → MSYNew York to New Orleans | JetBlue Airways | 72.3% | 76.3% | 5.30% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 16 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am104 flights90.0%
- 8am–11am529 flights82.0%
- 11am–2pm29 flights—
- 2pm–5pm464 flights74.4%
- 5pm–8pm3 flights—
- 8pm–5am13 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.0% of the time, against 74.4% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 529 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK 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 JFK to MSY, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 74.4%, a wide gap of 15.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.0%
- 8–11am82.0%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm74.4%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
July is the worst month at 63.3% on time, 29 points below April, the best at 92.0%. 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 117 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.1%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,209 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,035 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 90.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.34%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.0% 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 1,182 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 runs 77.2% on time across 1,142 flights, within 2 points 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 1,142 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 delay figures matter less here than the 5.34% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,081 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to MSY questions
How often is JFK 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 20.6% of the 1,142 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to MSY?
Delta Air Lines leads at 81.6% on time across 720 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 76.3%, a gap of 5 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on JFK to MSY?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 74.4%, 16 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 July delays on JFK to MSY?
July is the weakest month at 63.3% on time, compared with 92.0% in April. Across the year that is 29 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to MSY81.6%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to MSY76.3%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- ATL to MSY, a related route81.4%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.6%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record76.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record28.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. JFK to MSY and MSY to JFK 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.