Carrier route record
DLLGA→MSY
Delta Air Lines · New York to New Orleans
- Flights
- 719
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 51%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LGA to MSY lands a B−, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 719 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on LGA to MSY from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 687 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.45%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.9%
Every carrier on LGA to MSY, 1,421 flights
These figures cover 719 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on LGA to MSY
Delta flew 719 of the 1,421 flights on LGA to MSY, most of the route. Its 79.6% on time is 9 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 79.6% to Southwest at 55.0%. Four 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) | 719 | 79.6% | 78 min | 4.45% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 61 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 20 | 73.7% | 48 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 345 | 68.1% | 87 min | 2.61% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 333 | 55.0% | 72 min | 4.20% | D− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on LGA to MSY
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 22 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–8am283 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am82 flights86.1%
- 11am–2pm4 flights—
- 2pm–5pm350 flights68.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.0% of the time, against 68.8% for the afternoon window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 350 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on LGA to MSY through the year
December is the weak month at 63.0% on time, against 89.1% 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.2%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%Carrier
- 32%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 4,956 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 10,917 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.45%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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
8.2% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 76.9% on time across 719 flights, within 3 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. 719 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 LGA to MSY
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.45% 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. 687 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to MSY, every carrier
- Delta on MSY to LGA, the return leg
- American Airlines on LGA to MSY68.1%
- Southwest Airlines on LGA to MSY55.0%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.