Route reliability record
MSY→DEN
New Orleans to Denver
- Flights
- 2,279
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,062 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,279 MSY to DEN flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,008 at 87.0% on time.
Best time to fly MSY to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.4%, against 79.5% 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
79.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,267 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.35%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
87.0% on time across 1,008 flights
These figures cover 2,279 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 87.0% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 73.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,061 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,008 | 87.0% | 67 min | 0.10% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 210 | 75.1% | 94 min | 2.38% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,061 | 73.3% | 53 min | 0.19% | C+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New Orleans to Denver
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSY → DENNew Orleans to Denver | United Airlines | 86.9% | 87.0% | 0.10% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 2. MSY → DENNew Orleans to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 73.2% | 73.3% | 0.19% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 27 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am438 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am568 flights87.3%
- 11am–2pm95 flights86.3%
- 2pm–5pm553 flights75.7%
- 5pm–8pm530 flights65.3%
- 8pm–5am95 flights66.7%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.7% of the time, against 65.3% for the evening window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 568 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSY to DEN 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 DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.3%, a wide gap of 27.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.7%
- 8–11am87.3%
- 11am–2pm86.3%
- 2–5pm75.7%
- 5–8pm65.3%
- 8pm–5am66.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
June is the worst month at 66.0% on time, 21 points below November, the best at 86.9%. 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 229 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.5%, a spread of 10 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 28,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 28,472 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 92.7% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.35%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.4% 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 1,062 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 runs 77.3% on time across 2,279 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 2,279 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 DEN 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. November runs 86.9% on time and June 66.0%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,267 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSY to DEN questions
How often is MSY to DEN delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.5% of the 2,279 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSY to DEN?
United Airlines leads at 87.0% on time across 1,008 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 73.3%, a gap of 14 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 DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.3%, 27 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 June delays on MSY to DEN?
June is the weakest month at 66.0% on time, compared with 86.9% in November. Across the year that is 21 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
- DEN to MSY — the return legseparate record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on MSY to DEN87.0%
- Frontier Airlines on MSY to DEN75.1%
- Southwest Airlines on MSY to DEN73.3%
- MSY to ATL, a related route82.2%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- MSY to IAH, a related route83.2%
- United Airlines on-time record87.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record75.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.3%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MSY to DEN and DEN 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.