Route reliability record
MDW→MSY
Chicago to New Orleans
- Flights
- 1,017
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 825 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,017 MDW to MSY flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly MDW to MSY: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.2%, against 74.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,005 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.18%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
74.1% on time across 1,017 flights
These figures cover 1,017 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MDW 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,017 | 74.1% | 55 min | 1.18% | C |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago 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. ORD → MSYChicago to New Orleans | Envoy Air | 82.2% | 83.8% | 1.93% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 2. ORD → MSYChicago to New Orleans | United Airlines | 74.3% | 75.1% | 1.07% | 11am–2pm, Thu | — |
| 3. MDW → MSYChicago to New Orleans | Southwest Airlines | 73.2% | 74.1% | 1.18% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. ORD → MSYChicago to New Orleans | American Airlines | 61.2% | 62.6% | 2.24% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 26 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–8am83 flights83.1%
- 8am–11am286 flights88.7%
- 11am–2pm76 flights69.7%
- 2pm–5pm205 flights62.7%
- 5pm–8pm61 flights74.6%
- 8pm–5am306 flights66.7%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.7% of the time, against 62.7% for the afternoon window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 306 flights scheduled in it.
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.
July is the worst month at 56.2% on time, 32 points below January, the best at 87.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 97 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.9%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 14,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
52% 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 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 52 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 14,277 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 5,008 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 825 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.1% on time across 1,018 flights, 3 points above 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,017 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MSY after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,017 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 74.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,005 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MDW to MSY questions
How often is MDW to MSY delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.9% of the 1,017 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is MDW to MSY compared with the rest of the country?
74.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MDW to MSY?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 62.7%, 26 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 July delays on MDW to MSY?
July is the weakest month at 56.2% on time, compared with 87.9% in January. 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 MDW — the return legseparate record
- Chicago Midway International (MDW) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- MDW to ATL, a related route79.8%
- ATL to MSY, a related route81.4%
- MDW to PHX, a related route75.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. MDW to MSY and MSY to MDW 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.