Route reliability record
MSY→ATL
New Orleans to Atlanta
- Flights
- 4,004
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 425 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 4,004 MSY to ATL flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSY to ATL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 92.3%, against 82.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 49 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,937 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.47%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
86.7% on time across 3,278 flights
These figures cover 4,004 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSY to ATL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,278 | 86.7% | 71 min | 1.49% | A |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 340 | 67.0% | 49 min | 0.29% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 108 | 65.1% | 72 min | 1.85% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 276 | 54.9% | 77 min | 2.54% | F |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSY to ATL
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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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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,013 flights90.7%
- 8am–11am574 flights91.6%
- 11am–2pm710 flights86.7%
- 2pm–5pm765 flights73.1%
- 5pm–8pm930 flights71.6%
- 8pm–5am12 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 71.6% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,013 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSY to ATL 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 MSY to ATL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.6%, a wide gap of 20.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am90.7%
- 8–11am91.6%
- 11am–2pm86.7%
- 2–5pm73.1%
- 5–8pm71.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 68.2% on time, 26 points below September, the best at 94.1%. 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 393 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.7%, a spread of 19 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 48,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 47,887 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.47% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.2% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 425 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 81.4% on time across 4,002 flights, within about 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 4,004 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 ATL 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. September runs 94.1% on time and July 68.2%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,937 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSY to ATL questions
How often is MSY to ATL delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.8% of the 4,004 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is MSY to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
82.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSY to ATL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.6%, 20 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 MSY to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 68.2% on time, compared with 94.1% in September. Across the year that is 26 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
- ATL to MSY — the return legseparate record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MSY to ATL86.7%
- Southwest Airlines on MSY to ATL67.0%
- Spirit Airlines on MSY to ATL65.1%
- Frontier Airlines on MSY to ATL54.9%
- MSY to IAH, a related route83.2%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- MSY to DFW, a related route74.1%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record67.0%
- 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. MSY to ATL and ATL to MSY 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.