Route reliability record
MSY→EWR
New Orleans to Newark
- Flights
- 1,213
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,167 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,213 MSY to EWR flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSY to EWR: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.6%, against 84.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 69 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,179 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.31%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
84.6% on time across 1,014 flights
These figures cover 1,213 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 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 | 160 | 90.1% | 73 min | 5.62% | A− |
| United Airlines | 1,014 | 84.6% | 88 min | 1.87% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 15 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 34 | 55.9% | 105 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.
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 | 83.0% | 84.6% | 1.87% | 8am–11am, Mon | UA 2235 19:39 |
| 2. MSY → JFKNew Orleans to New York | Delta Air Lines | 77.4% | 82.0% | 5.56% | 8am–11am, Thu | DL 1387 19:55 |
| 3. MSY → LGANew Orleans to New York | Delta Air Lines | 73.5% | 76.9% | 4.45% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 2411 10:35 |
| 4. MSY → JFKNew Orleans to New York | JetBlue Airways | 70.7% | 73.2% | 3.37% | 8am–11am, 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 31 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–8am292 flights93.0%
- 8am–11am252 flights94.8%
- 11am–2pm276 flights77.0%
- 2pm–5pm5 flights—
- 5pm–8pm119 flights63.8%
- 8pm–5am269 flights83.2%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.8% on time, against 94.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 292 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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 62.9% on time, 34 points below May, the best at 96.4%. 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 79.0%. 10 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. National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 16,000 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.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
34% 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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 34 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 16,074 reported delay minutes.
47% 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 7,484 minutes out of 16,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.31% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.49%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.6% 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 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. 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.5% on time across 1,212 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,213 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 July 62.9%, a swing of 34 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,179 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 six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.5% of the 1,213 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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?
84.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 7 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 EWR?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 94.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.8%, 31 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 EWR?
July is the weakest month at 62.9% on time, compared with 96.4% in May. Across the year that is 34 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 EWR90.1%
- United Airlines on MSY to EWR84.6%
- MSY to ATL, a related route83.3%
- MCO to EWR, a related route73.8%
- MSY to IAH, a related route82.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record90.1%
- United Airlines on-time record84.6%
- 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 7.04 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.
Embed MSY to EWR’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.