Route reliability record
MSY→JFK
New Orleans to New York
- Flights
- 1,142
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,182 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,142 MSY to JFK flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 720 at 82.0% on time.
Best time to fly MSY to JFK: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.9% of the time and Saturday flights 84.5%, against 78.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,083 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.73%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
82.0% on time across 720 flights
These figures cover 1,142 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSY to JFK
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.0% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 73.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 415 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 720 | 82.0% | 69 min | 5.56% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 415 | 73.2% | 95 min | 3.37% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 71.4% | 96 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Delta Air Lines cancels 5.6% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSY to JFK
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 New York
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. 2 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 24 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am37 flights91.9%
- 8am–11am105 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm537 flights78.8%
- 2pm–5pm42 flights76.9%
- 5pm–8pm213 flights67.6%
- 8pm–5am208 flights82.2%
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 91.9% of the time, against 67.6% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 537 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 65.9% on time, 24 points below September, the best at 90.2%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.7%. 13 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 19,000 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%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 47 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 18,772 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 91.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.73%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.5% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,182 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 runs 81.6% on time across 1,142 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,142 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 JFK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.73% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,083 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSY to JFK questions
How often is MSY to JFK delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.3% of the 1,142 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSY to JFK?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.0% on time across 720 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 73.2%, a gap of 9 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSY to JFK?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.6%, 24 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 JFK?
July is the weakest month at 65.9% on time, compared with 90.2% in September. Across the year that is 24 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
- JFK to MSY — the return legseparate record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MSY to JFK82.0%
- JetBlue Airways on MSY to JFK73.2%
- MSY to ATL, a related route83.3%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- MSY to IAH, a related route82.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.0%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record73.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record71.4%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MSY to JFK and JFK 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.