Carrier route record
WNMSY→LAX
Southwest Airlines · New Orleans to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 356
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- 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 LAX draws a C+. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 356 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on MSY to LAX runs 12 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 119 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 355 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.3%
Every carrier on MSY to LAX, 1,428 flights
These figures cover 356 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MSY to LAX
Southwest flew 356 of the 1,428 flights on MSY to LAX, about 25% of it. Its 65.4% on time is 13 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.0% to Southwest at 65.4%. 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 | 949 | 83.0% | 80 min | 0.53% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 123 | 79.3% | 104 min | 1.63% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 356 | 65.4% | 55 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 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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am20 flights—
- 8am–11am9 flights—
- 11am–2pm21 flights—
- 2pm–5pm245 flights64.5%
- 5pm–8pm53 flights49.1%
- 8pm–5am8 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 70%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.1% on time, against 64.5% 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 245 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MSY to LAX through the year
- Jul–Sep 202526 flights—
- Oct–Dec 2025105 flights68.3%
- Jan–Mar 202694 flights71.3%
- Apr–Jun 202678 flights55.1%
- Jul–Sep 202653 flights58.5%
Scale runs 45% to 75%. 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 65.4% on time across 356 flights.
Southwest on MSY to LAX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 71.3% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 55.1%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 89 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 76.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 56.9%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on MSY to LAX runs when it is late
The 123 late arrivals split 51 under half an hour, 36 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 36 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early49 flights13.8%
- Within 15 min183 flights51.5%
- 15–29 min late51 flights14.4%
- 30–59 min late36 flights10.1%
- 1–2 hours late24 flights6.8%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 355 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 181 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 68 still arrived on time. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on MSY to LAX
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 October 2025, 4 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in June 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 October 2025 | 4 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 September 2025 | 3 hours 51 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 June 2026 | 3 hours 49 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 June 2026 | 3 hours 46 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 June 2026 | 3 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 6,788 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
60% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,788 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 to one. The split is drawn from 6,788 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% 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
10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.9% on time across 356 flights, 5 points above 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 356 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. 356 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 65.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 355 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSY to LAX, every carrier
- Southwest on LAX to MSY, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on MSY to LAX83.0%
- Spirit Airlines on MSY to LAX79.3%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.