Carrier route record

WNLAX→MSY

Southwest Airlines · Los Angeles to New Orleans

Flights: 361
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 24%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 361 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on LAX to MSY runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 71 extra late arrivals.

On time

70.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights

Avg delay

44 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.28%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.8%

Every carrier on LAX to MSY, 1,500 flights

These figures cover 361 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on LAX to MSY

Southwest flew 361 of the 1,500 flights on LAX to MSY, about 24% of it. Its 70.5% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.8% to Southwest at 70.5%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to MSY
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	959	81.8%	67 min	0.42%	B+
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	180	79.5%	112 min	2.22%	B
Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample	361	70.5%	44 min	0.28%	C+

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 37 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am34 flights85.3%
8am–11am199 flights80.3%
11am–2pm103 flights48.5%
2pm–5pm13 flights—
5pm–8pm12 flights—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 40% 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 48.5% on time against 85.3% 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 199 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on LAX to MSY through the year

Jul–Sep 202584 flights84.3%
Oct–Dec 2025105 flights70.5%
Jan–Mar 202694 flights67.7%
Apr–Jun 202678 flights59.0%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. 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 70.5% on time across 361 flights.

Southwest on LAX to MSY did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 84.3% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 59.0%, a swing of 25 points on roughly 90 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 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.5%. 24 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 4,638 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
40%
Late-arriving aircraft
38%
National Airspace System
22%

38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 4,638 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 4,638 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,877 of the 4,638 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.28%, below the national 1.81% 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

5.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.

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 69.4% on time across 361 flights, within about a point 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. 361 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. 361 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 70.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 359 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures