Route reliability record
MSY→LGA
New Orleans to New York
- Flights
- 1,421
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,183 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,421 MSY to LGA flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSY to LGA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.1% of the time and Saturday flights 81.1%, against 71.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 60 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,357 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.52%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
76.9% on time across 719 flights
These figures cover 1,421 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% 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 LGA
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 | 719 | 76.9% | 91 min | 4.45% | B− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 333 | 72.7% | 53 min | 2.40% | C |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 345 | 60.7% | 97 min | 2.90% | D |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 20 | 60.0% | 178 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 50.0% | 46 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSY to LGA
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. 3 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 20 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–8am—
- 8am–11am298 flights82.1%
- 11am–2pm409 flights76.9%
- 2pm–5pm214 flights62.1%
- 5pm–8pm329 flights64.3%
- 8pm–5am171 flights66.2%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.1% of the time, against 62.1% for the afternoon window. That is 20 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 409 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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.
December is the weak month at 59.3% on time, against 90.6% in January. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.8%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 33,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% 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 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 33,079 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 82.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.52%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,183 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 70.9% on time across 1,421 flights, within half a point 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 1,421 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.52% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,357 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSY to LGA questions
How often is MSY to LGA delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.4% of the 1,421 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MSY to LGA compared with the rest of the country?
71.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSY to LGA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 62.1%, 20 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 December delays on MSY to LGA?
December is the weakest month at 59.3% on time, compared with 90.6% in January. Across the year that is 31 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
- LGA to MSY — the return legseparate record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MSY to LGA76.9%
- Southwest Airlines on MSY to LGA72.7%
- American Airlines on MSY to LGA60.7%
- MSY to ATL, a related route83.3%
- ORD to LGA, a related route67.3%
- MSY to IAH, a related route82.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.7%
- American Airlines on-time record60.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MSY to LGA and LGA 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.