Route reliability record
MSY→ATL
New Orleans to Atlanta
- Flights
- 4,056
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 425 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,056 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,987 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.50%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
87.3% on time across 3,278 flights
These figures cover 4,056 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
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 | 87.3% | 65 min | 1.59% | A |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 361 | 70.8% | 46 min | 0.28% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 183 | 70.8% | 86 min | 2.73% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 232 | 56.8% | 74 min | 1.29% | D |
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 17 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–8am1,060 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am594 flights91.5%
- 11am–2pm722 flights86.3%
- 2pm–5pm784 flights74.5%
- 5pm–8pm870 flights74.4%
- 8pm–5am26 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 91.5% of the time, against 74.4% for the evening window. That is 17 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 1,060 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 94.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 393 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 93.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.1%. 17 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 45% of the 43,000 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%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% 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 43,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 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 43,359 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 91.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.50% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.4% 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 are the about an hour kind, 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 4,052 flights, within 2 points 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 4,056 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.
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 May 75.3%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 3,987 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.7% of the 4,056 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MSY to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
83.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 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 91.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.4%, 17 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 May delays on MSY to ATL?
May is the weakest month at 75.3% on time, compared with 94.1% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record70.8%
- 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. 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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.