Route reliability record
LGA→MSY
New York to New Orleans
- Flights
- 1,391
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,183 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,391 LGA to MSY flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to MSY: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Saturday flights 81.4%, against 70.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 71 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,331 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
79.1% on time across 689 flights
These figures cover 1,391 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% 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 LGA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 689 | 79.1% | 73 min | 4.79% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 61 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 345 | 68.4% | 78 min | 2.90% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 20 | 68.4% | 41 min | 5.00% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 333 | 53.9% | 80 min | 4.20% | F− |
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA 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. 3 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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am278 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am109 flights82.9%
- 11am–2pm220 flights72.9%
- 2pm–5pm586 flights62.3%
- 5pm–8pm194 flights55.7%
- 8pm–5am4 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.7% on time, against 90.1% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 586 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA 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 LGA to MSY, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 55.7%, a wide gap of 34.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.1%
- 8–11am82.9%
- 11am–2pm72.9%
- 2–5pm62.3%
- 5–8pm55.7%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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.
December is the weak month at 52.2% on time, against 84.5% in February. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 65.3%, a spread of 16 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
- 27%National Airspace System
- 27%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 14 to one. The split is drawn from 30,157 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 90.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.17%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
12.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,183 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 70.1% on time across 1,391 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 1,391 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 4.17% 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. 1,331 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to MSY questions
How often is LGA to MSY delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.8% of the 1,391 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is LGA to MSY compared with the rest of the country?
70.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to MSY?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.7%, 34 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 December delays on LGA to MSY?
December is the weakest month at 52.2% on time, compared with 84.5% in February. Across the year that is 32 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 LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to MSY79.1%
- American Airlines on LGA to MSY68.4%
- Southwest Airlines on LGA to MSY53.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ATL to MSY, a related route81.4%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record75.0%
- American Airlines on-time record68.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to MSY and MSY to LGA 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.