Carrier route record

WNMSY→FLL

Southwest Airlines · New Orleans to Fort Lauderdale

Flights: 365
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 26%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 365 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Spirit Airlines, flew 492 at 77.5% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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

73.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 362 completed flights

Avg delay

44 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.27%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

73.1%

Every carrier on MSY to FLL, 1,406 flights

These figures cover 365 flights between September 2025 and August 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.

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Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on MSY to FLL

Southwest flew 365 of the 1,406 flights on MSY to FLL, about 26% of it. Its 73.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 77.5% to JetBlue at 68.9%.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 77.5% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 68.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 549 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	492	77.5%	62 min	4.07%	B−
Southwest Airlines (this page)	365	73.5%	44 min	0.27%	C+
JetBlue Airways	549	68.9%	82 min	2.19%	C

Spirit Airlines cancels 4.1% 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.

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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 9 points between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am44 flights86.4%
8am–11am114 flights85.8%
11am–2pm91 flights66.7%
2pm–5pm96 flights65.6%
5pm–8pm19 flights—
8pm–5am1 flights—

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.4% of the time, against 65.6% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 114 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 47.1% on time, 43 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 64.8%, a spread of 19 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Southwest on MSY to FLL runs when it is late

The 96 late arrivals split 44 under half an hour, 33 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 19 an hour or more.

15+ min early47 flights13.0%
Within 15 min219 flights60.5%
15–29 min late44 flights12.2%
30–59 min late33 flights9.1%
1–2 hours late14 flights3.9%
2+ hours late5 flights1.4%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 362 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

24 of 107 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. 13 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for Southwest on MSY to FLL

The latest arrival of the period was on 16 March 2026, 3 hours 17 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. Three of the five worst days fell in March 2026.

The latest arrivals of Southwest on MSY to FLL in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
16 March 2026	3 hours 17 minutes	National Airspace System
15 March 2026	3 hours 5 minutes	National Airspace System
20 June 2026	3 hours	Late-arriving aircraft
12 July 2026	2 hours 25 minutes	National Airspace System
8 March 2026	2 hours 21 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 4,222 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
45%
Carrier
30%
National Airspace System
19%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
1%

45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,222 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 4,222 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 86.4% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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 costs

5.2% 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 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.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 66.8% on time across 365 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. 365 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. 365 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 73.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 362 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures