Route reliability record
MIA→MSY
Miami to New Orleans
- Flights
- 1,480
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 674 mi
- Carriers
- 5
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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,480 MIA to MSY flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly MIA to MSY: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.7%, against 74.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,458 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.15%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
74.1% on time across 1,295 flights
These figures cover 1,480 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 MIA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 105 | 86.7% | 54 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 9 | 77.8% | 80 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,295 | 74.1% | 63 min | 1.08% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 67 | 62.5% | 78 min | 4.48% | D− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 50.0% | 21 min | 0.00% | 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Miami 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. MIA → MSYMiami to New Orleans | American Airlines | 73.3% | 74.1% | 1.08% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. FLL → MSYFort Lauderdale to New Orleans | Spirit Airlines | 67.0% | 69.9% | 4.10% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. FLL → MSYFort Lauderdale to New Orleans | Southwest Airlines | 66.8% | 66.8% | 0.00% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 4. FLL → MSYFort Lauderdale to New Orleans | JetBlue Airways | 53.0% | 54.0% | 1.82% | 11am–2pm, Wed | B6 2823 20:10 |
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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am82 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am310 flights90.5%
- 11am–2pm8 flights—
- 2pm–5pm254 flights74.5%
- 5pm–8pm301 flights63.1%
- 8pm–5am525 flights68.9%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.1% on time, against 92.6% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 525 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MIA 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 MIA to MSY, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 63.1%, a wide gap of 29.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.6%
- 8–11am90.5%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm74.5%
- 5–8pm63.1%
- 8pm–5am68.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 63.1% on time, 17 points below January, the best at 80.2%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 140 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.5%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 24,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 23,567 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,418 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.15% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 674 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 80.2% on time across 1,478 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,480 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 80.2% on time and July 63.1%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,458 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MIA to MSY questions
How often is MIA 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 25.5% of the 1,480 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MIA to MSY compared with the rest of the country?
74.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MIA to MSY?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.1%, 29 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 MIA to MSY?
July is the weakest month at 63.1% on time, compared with 80.2% in January. Across the year that is 17 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 MIA — the return legseparate record
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on MIA to MSY86.7%
- American Airlines on MIA to MSY74.1%
- MIA to ATL, a related route74.2%
- ATL to MSY, a related route81.4%
- MIA to LGA, a related route67.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record86.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.8%
- American Airlines on-time record74.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. MIA to MSY and MSY to MIA 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.