Carrier route record
DLMSY→JFK
Delta Air Lines · New Orleans to New York
- Flights
- 720
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 63%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MSY to JFK lands a B−, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 720 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSY to JFK from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 674 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.83%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.2%
Every carrier on MSY to JFK, 1,142 flights
These figures cover 720 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
Delta against every carrier on MSY to JFK
Delta flew 720 of the 1,142 flights on MSY to JFK, most of the route. Its 80.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 80.1% to Frontier at 71.4%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 720 | 80.1% | 70 min | 5.83% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 415 | 72.2% | 86 min | 5.30% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 71.4% | 96 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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 Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am119 flights81.2%
- 11am–2pm245 flights84.1%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm137 flights72.4%
- 8pm–5am219 flights79.8%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 84.1% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 72.4%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 245 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSY to JFK through the year
August is the worst month at 63.8% on time, 25 points below March, the best at 88.3%. 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 74.5%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on MSY to JFK runs when it is late
Delta on MSY to JFK often beats the schedule: 281 of 674 completed flights, 42%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 134 late arrivals split 49 under half an hour, 43 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 42 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early281 flights41.7%
- Within 15 min259 flights38.4%
- 15–29 min late49 flights7.3%
- 30–59 min late43 flights6.4%
- 1–2 hours late23 flights3.4%
- 2+ hours late19 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 674 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
36 of 137 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. 33 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on MSY to JFK
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 August 2026, 16 hours 58 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 August 2026 | 16 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 June 2026 | 5 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 13 July 2026 | 5 hours 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 February 2026 | 4 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 October 2025 | 4 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 9,408 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,408 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 48 to one. The split is drawn from 9,408 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,225 of the 9,408 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 5.83%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in fifteen 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 costs
6.2% 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 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.
The return leg runs 81.6% on time across 720 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 720 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 Delta on MSY to JFK
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.83% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 674 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSY to JFK, every carrier
- Delta on JFK to MSY, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on MSY to JFK72.2%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.