Carrier route record
UAMSY→EWR
United Airlines · New Orleans to Newark
- Flights
- 1,035
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 85%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on MSY to EWR 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 1,035 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's MSY to EWR record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 92 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,009 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.93%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
86.3%
Every carrier on MSY to EWR, 1,218 flights
These figures cover 1,035 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on MSY to EWR
United flew 1,035 of the 1,218 flights on MSY to EWR, most of the route. Its 86.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 86.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 90.3% to Spirit at 56.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 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
United flight numbers on MSY to EWR
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am275 flights95.1%
- 8am–11am268 flights93.6%
- 11am–2pm229 flights76.0%
- 2pm–5pm6 flights—
- 5pm–8pm86 flights73.8%
- 8pm–5am171 flights83.4%
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 95.1% of the time, against 73.8% for the evening window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 275 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on MSY to EWR through the year
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 69.9%. February is the strongest month at 97.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 27 points. April was the busiest month here, with 112 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 89.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 82.0%, a spread of 7 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on MSY to EWR runs when it is late
United on MSY to EWR often beats the schedule: 423 of 1,009 completed flights, 42%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 136 late arrivals split 37 under half an hour, 39 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 60 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early423 flights41.9%
- Within 15 min450 flights44.6%
- 15–29 min late37 flights3.7%
- 30–59 min late39 flights3.9%
- 1–2 hours late32 flights3.2%
- 2+ hours late28 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,009 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
27 of 137 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 26 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on MSY to EWR
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 August 2026, 16 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in August 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 August 2026 | 16 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 August 2026 | 13 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 August 2026 | 13 hours 45 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 19 July 2026 | 6 hours 33 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 December 2025 | 4 hours 22 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
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 12,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 12,274 reported delay minutes.
40% 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 4,940 minutes out of 12,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.58%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.9% 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 78.9% on time across 1,036 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,035 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 United on MSY to EWR
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,035 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 86.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,009 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSY to EWR, every carrier
- United on EWR to MSY, the return leg
- Republic Airways on MSY to EWR90.3%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.