Carrier route record
WNLAX→MSY
Southwest Airlines · Los Angeles to New Orleans
- Flights
- 356
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on LAX to MSY sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 356 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on LAX to MSY runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 74 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 355 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.28%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.0%
Every carrier on LAX to MSY, 1,431 flights
These figures cover 356 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 LAX to MSY
Southwest flew 356 of the 1,431 flights on LAX to MSY, about 25% of it. Its 69.9% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.5% to Southwest at 69.9%. One 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 | 949 | 81.5% | 69 min | 0.42% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 126 | 74.6% | 118 min | 3.17% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 356 | 69.9% | 44 min | 0.28% | C+ |
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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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am33 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am192 flights76.6%
- 11am–2pm101 flights56.4%
- 2pm–5pm13 flights—
- 5pm–8pm17 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 56.4% on time against 84.8% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 192 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on LAX to MSY through the year
- Jul–Sep 202526 flights—
- Oct–Dec 2025105 flights70.5%
- Jan–Mar 202694 flights67.7%
- Apr–Jun 202678 flights59.0%
- Jul–Sep 202653 flights77.4%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 69.9% on time across 356 flights.
Southwest on LAX to MSY did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 77.4% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 59.0%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 89 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 50.9%, a spread of 30 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on LAX to MSY runs when it is late
Most of the lateness is short. 56 of the 107 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 19 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early25 flights7.0%
- Within 15 min223 flights62.8%
- 15–29 min late56 flights15.8%
- 30–59 min late32 flights9.0%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights3.1%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 355 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
30 of 104 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 29% of them. In the other direction, 33 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MSY.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on LAX to MSY
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 November 2025, 3 hours 51 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 November 2025 | 3 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 June 2026 | 3 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 October 2025 | 2 hours 42 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 December 2025 | 2 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 June 2026 | 2 hours 25 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 4,724 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,724 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 to one. The split is drawn from 4,724 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,956 of the 4,724 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.28%, 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
5.4% 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 about 45 minutes, 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 65.4% on time across 356 flights, 5 points below 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 356 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 LAX to MSY
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 356 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 69.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 355 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to MSY, every carrier
- Southwest on MSY to LAX, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to MSY81.5%
- Spirit Airlines on LAX to MSY74.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) 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 7.05 million flight records
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.