Carrier route record

WNMSY→FLL

Southwest Airlines · New Orleans to Fort Lauderdale

Flights: 368
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 26%
Carriers: 3

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

Southwest on MSY to FLL sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 368 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Spirit Airlines, flew 604 at 78.8% on time.

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

On time

74.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 365 completed flights

Avg delay

46 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.27%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.2%

Every carrier on MSY to FLL, 1,397 flights

These figures cover 368 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on MSY to FLL

Southwest flew 368 of the 1,397 flights on MSY to FLL, about 26% of it. Its 74.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 78.8% to JetBlue at 71.3%.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 78.8% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 71.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 425 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on MSY to FLL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Spirit Airlines	604	78.8%	64 min	3.31%	B−
Southwest Airlines (this page)	368	74.0%	46 min	0.27%	C+
JetBlue Airways	425	71.3%	82 min	1.88%	C

Spirit Airlines cancels 3.3% 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 Southwest 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 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am40 flights87.5%
8am–11am109 flights86.2%
11am–2pm83 flights67.1%
2pm–5pm116 flights67.0%
5pm–8pm19 flights—
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.5% of the time, against 67.0% for the afternoon 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 116 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on MSY to FLL through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, July worst

July is the worst month at 50.0% on time, 40 points below February, the best at 90.0%. 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 35 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 66.0%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 4,362 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
47%
Carrier
28%
National Airspace System
18%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
1%

47% 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 4,362 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 4,362 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 87.5% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs

5.2% 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 about 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 673 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 66.6% on time across 368 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 368 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 Southwest on MSY to FLL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 368 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 74.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 365 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