Route reliability record
MSY→EWR
New Orleans to Newark
- Flights
- 1,218
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,167 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,218 MSY to EWR flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSY to EWR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 89.0%, against 86.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 90 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,183 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
86.5% on time across 1,035 flights
These figures cover 1,218 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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 EWR
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 153 | 90.3% | 68 min | 5.88% | A− |
| United Airlines | 1,035 | 86.5% | 90 min | 1.93% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 15 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 25 | 56.0% | 97 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSY to EWR
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New Orleans to Newark
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSY → EWRNew Orleans to Newark | United Airlines | 84.8% | 86.5% | 1.93% | 5am–8am, Mon | UA 2235 19:39 |
| 2. MSY → JFKNew Orleans to New York | Delta Air Lines | 75.4% | 80.1% | 5.83% | 11am–2pm, Thu | — |
| 3. MSY → LGANew Orleans to New York | Delta Air Lines | 71.0% | 74.7% | 4.93% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 2411 11:14 |
| 4. MSY → JFKNew Orleans to New York | JetBlue Airways | 68.4% | 72.2% | 5.30% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am280 flights94.9%
- 8am–11am295 flights93.8%
- 11am–2pm276 flights77.0%
- 2pm–5pm6 flights—
- 5pm–8pm111 flights72.5%
- 8pm–5am250 flights85.2%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.9% of the time, against 72.5% for the evening window. That is 22 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 295 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSY to EWR 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 EWR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 72.5%, a wide gap of 22.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.9%
- 8–11am93.8%
- 11am–2pm77.0%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm72.5%
- 8pm–5am85.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 96.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.6%, a spread of 8 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 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 14,312 reported delay minutes.
41% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 5,901 minutes out of 14,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.38% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.49%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.3% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,167 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.7% on time across 1,218 flights, 7 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,218 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 EWR 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. May runs 96.4% on time and October 70.8%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 1,183 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSY to EWR questions
How often is MSY to EWR delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.7% of the 1,218 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MSY to EWR compared with the rest of the country?
86.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSY to EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.5%, 22 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 October delays on MSY to EWR?
October is the weakest month at 70.8% on time, compared with 96.4% in May. 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
- EWR to MSY — the return legseparate record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on MSY to EWR90.3%
- United Airlines on MSY to EWR86.5%
- MSY to ATL, a related route82.2%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- MSY to IAH, a related route83.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record90.3%
- United Airlines on-time record86.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record80.0%
- 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 EWR and EWR 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.