Route reliability record
MSY→DCA
New Orleans to Washington
- Flights
- 1,952
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 969 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,952 MSY to DCA flights, of which American Airlines flew 458 at 74.4% on time.
Best time to fly MSY to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.1% of the time and Saturday flights 77.9%, against 71.1% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 74.4% on time across 458 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,882 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
74.4% on time across 458 flights
These figures cover 1,952 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.8% 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
Which airline is most reliable on MSY to DCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 74.4% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 67.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 558 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 230 | 82.6% | 52 min | 1.74% | B |
| American Airlines | 458 | 74.4% | 81 min | 3.06% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 706 | 68.2% | 67 min | 0.99% | C+ |
| PSA Airlines | 558 | 67.4% | 125 min | 5.73% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.7% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New Orleans to Washington
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. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSY → BWINew Orleans to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 79.8% | 81.1% | 1.55% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. MSY → DCANew Orleans to Washington | American Airlines | 72.1% | 74.4% | 3.06% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 3. MSY → DCANew Orleans to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 67.5% | 68.2% | 0.99% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 4. MSY → DCANew Orleans to Washington | PSA Airlines | 63.5% | 67.4% | 5.73% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 32 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am208 flights85.1%
- 8am–11am574 flights84.3%
- 11am–2pm145 flights75.5%
- 2pm–5pm517 flights67.1%
- 5pm–8pm508 flights53.2%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.2% on time, against 85.1% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 574 flights scheduled in it.
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 63.3% on time, 17 points below January, the best at 80.5%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 189 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.3%. 13 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 44% of the 47,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
44% 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 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 47,122 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 85.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.92%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 969 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 73.7% on time across 1,951 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,952 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 DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.92% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,882 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSY to DCA questions
How often is MSY to DCA delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.9% of the 1,952 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSY to DCA?
American Airlines leads at 74.4% on time across 458 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 67.4%, a gap of 7 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSY to DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.2%, 32 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 DCA?
July is the weakest month at 63.3% on time, compared with 80.5% 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
- DCA to MSY — the return legseparate record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on MSY to DCA82.6%
- American Airlines on MSY to DCA74.4%
- Southwest Airlines on MSY to DCA68.2%
- PSA Airlines on MSY to DCA67.4%
- MSY to ATL, a related route83.3%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- MSY to IAH, a related route82.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.6%
- American Airlines on-time record74.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record68.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MSY to DCA and DCA 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.