Carrier route record

WNMSY→LAX

Southwest Airlines · New Orleans to Los Angeles

Flights: 361
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 24%
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 LAX sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 361 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on MSY to LAX runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 82 extra late arrivals.

On time

69.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights

Avg delay

51 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.00%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.1%

Every carrier on MSY to LAX, 1,499 flights

These figures cover 361 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 LAX

Southwest flew 361 of the 1,499 flights on MSY to LAX, about 24% of it. Its 69.4% on time is 11 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 84.0% to Southwest at 69.4%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on MSY to LAX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	959	84.0%	85 min	0.52%	B+
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	179	80.7%	90 min	1.12%	B
Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample	361	69.4%	51 min	0.00%	C+

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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am20 flights—
8am–11am24 flights—
11am–2pm17 flights—
2pm–5pm243 flights69.5%
5pm–8pm44 flights47.7%
8pm–5am13 flights—

Scale runs 40% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 47.7% on time, against 69.5% for the 2pm–5pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 243 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on MSY to LAX through the year

Jul–Sep 202584 flights82.1%
Oct–Dec 2025105 flights68.3%
Jan–Mar 202694 flights71.3%
Apr–Jun 202678 flights55.1%

Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 69.4% on time across 361 flights.

Southwest on MSY to LAX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 82.1% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 55.1%, a swing of 27 points on roughly 90 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 60.3%. 23 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 59% of the 5,602 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
59%
Carrier
30%
National Airspace System
8%
Extreme weather
3%

59% 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 5,602 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 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 5,602 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.2% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 1,671 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg runs 70.5% on time across 361 flights, within about a point 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. 361 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 LAX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 361 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 69.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 360 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