Carrier route record

AAMSY→DCA

American Airlines · New Orleans to Washington

Flights: 458
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 23%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on MSY to DCA 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 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 458 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 706 at 68.2% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on MSY to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 441 completed flights

Avg delay

81 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.06%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

71.1%

Every carrier on MSY to DCA, 1,952 flights

These figures cover 458 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% 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

American against every carrier on MSY to DCA

American flew 458 of the 1,952 flights on MSY to DCA, about 23% of it. Its 74.4% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 82.6% to PSA at 67.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on MSY to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	230	82.6%	52 min	1.74%	B
American Airlines (this page)	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.

Departure window

When American runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 31 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am79 flights84.0%
8am–11am117 flights90.4%
11am–2pm4 flights—
2pm–5pm65 flights77.8%
5pm–8pm193 flights59.2%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.2% on time, against 90.4% for the 8am–11am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 193 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on MSY to DCA through the year

Jul–Sep 202588 flights65.1%
Oct–Dec 2025138 flights80.3%
Jan–Mar 2026184 flights75.4%
Apr–Jun 202648 flights69.6%

Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 74.4% on time across 458 flights.

American on MSY to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 80.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 65.1%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 115 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.5%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 9,109 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
60%
Carrier
23%
National Airspace System
12%
Extreme weather
5%

60% 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 9,109 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 9,109 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 90.4% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.06%, 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.1% 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 73.5% on time across 457 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 458 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.

What to do with this

Booking American on MSY to DCA

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.06% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 441 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures