Carrier route record
DLLAX→MSY
Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to New Orleans
- Flights
- 949
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LAX to MSY lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly 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 949 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's LAX to MSY record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 42 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 942 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.42%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.0%
Every carrier on LAX to MSY, 1,431 flights
These figures cover 949 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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
Delta against every carrier on LAX to MSY
Delta flew 949 of the 1,431 flights on LAX to MSY, most of the route. Its 81.5% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.5% to Southwest at 69.9%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 949 | 81.5% | 69 min | 0.42% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 126 | 74.6% | 118 min | 3.17% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 356 | 69.9% | 44 min | 0.28% | C+ |
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 Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am358 flights92.4%
- 8am–11am35 flights60.0%
- 11am–2pm212 flights72.9%
- 2pm–5pm78 flights93.6%
- 5pm–8pm266 flights73.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 93.6% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 60.0%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 358 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on LAX to MSY through the year
July is the worst month at 67.1% on time, 28 points below August, the best at 95.2%. 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 88 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.4%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on LAX to MSY runs when it is late
Delta on LAX to MSY often beats the schedule: 275 of 942 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 174 late arrivals split 68 under half an hour, 36 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 70 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early275 flights29.2%
- Within 15 min493 flights52.3%
- 15–29 min late68 flights7.2%
- 30–59 min late36 flights3.8%
- 1–2 hours late45 flights4.8%
- 2+ hours late25 flights2.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 942 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
26 of 159 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 41 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on LAX to MSY
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 February 2026, 15 hours 9 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 February 2026 | 15 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 31 July 2026 | 5 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 September 2025 | 4 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 September 2025 | 4 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 23 May 2026 | 3 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 57% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,742 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,920 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.42%, 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 costs
7.4% 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.
At 1,671 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 83.0% on time across 949 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 949 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 Delta on LAX to MSY
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 949 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 81.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 942 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to MSY, every carrier
- Delta on MSY to LAX, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on LAX to MSY74.6%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to MSY69.9%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.