Carrier route record

AALGA→MSY

American Airlines · New York to New Orleans

Flights: 345
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 25%
Carriers: 5

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on LGA 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, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 345 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on LGA to MSY runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 89 extra late arrivals.

On time

68.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 335 completed flights

Avg delay

78 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.90%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

70.2%

Every carrier on LGA to MSY, 1,391 flights

These figures cover 345 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.

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Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on LGA to MSY

American flew 345 of the 1,391 flights on LGA to MSY, about 25% of it. Its 68.4% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 70.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 79.1% to Southwest at 53.9%. Three 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 LGA to MSY
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 Airlines (this page)thin 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−

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 American runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am3 flights—
8am–11am4 flights—
11am–2pm197 flights72.3%
2pm–5pm141 flights62.0%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 72.3% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 62.0%. 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 197 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on LGA to MSY through the year

Jul–Sep 202526 flights—
Oct–Dec 202591 flights56.7%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights81.0%
Apr–Jun 202685 flights67.1%
Jul–Sep 202653 flights60.0%

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 68.4% on time across 345 flights.

American on LGA to MSY did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.0% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 56.7%, a swing of 24 points on roughly 86 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.8%, a spread of 19 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late American on LGA to MSY runs when it is late

American on LGA to MSY often beats the schedule: 92 of 335 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 106 late arrivals split 29 under half an hour, 30 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 47 an hour or more.

15+ min early92 flights27.5%
Within 15 min137 flights40.9%
15–29 min late29 flights8.7%
30–59 min late30 flights9.0%
1–2 hours late27 flights8.1%
2+ hours late20 flights6.0%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 335 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

16 of 90 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. In the other direction, 32 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 American on LGA to MSY

The latest arrival of the period was on 23 June 2026, 10 hours 16 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of American on LGA to MSY in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
23 June 2026	10 hours 16 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
14 December 2025	6 hours 21 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
9 July 2026	4 hours 43 minutes	Extreme weather
22 February 2026	3 hours 45 minutes	Carrier
5 April 2026	3 hours 21 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 8,228 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
45%
National Airspace System
28%
Carrier
17%
Extreme weather
10%
Security
1%

45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,228 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 8,228 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 2.90%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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 costs

14.0% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 59.3% on time across 345 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 345 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 American on LGA to MSY

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.90% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 335 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures