Route reliability record
MSY→LGA
New Orleans to New York
- Flights
- 1,391
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,183 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 1,391 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 78.7% of the time and Saturday flights 79.4%, against 70.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 72 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,322 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.81%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
74.7% on time across 689 flights
These figures cover 1,391 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 | 689 | 74.7% | 91 min | 4.93% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 333 | 72.7% | 52 min | 2.10% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 20 | 63.2% | 61 min | 5.00% | D− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 345 | 59.3% | 101 min | 3.19% | 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.
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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 | 84.8% | 86.5% | 1.93% | 5am–8am, Mon | UA 2235 19:39 |
| 2. MSY → JFKNew Orleans to New York | Delta Air Lines | 75.4% | 80.1% | 5.83% | 11am–2pm, Thu | — |
| 3. MSY → LGANew Orleans to New York | Delta Air Lines | 71.0% | 74.7% | 4.93% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 2411 11:14 |
| 4. MSY → JFKNew Orleans to New York | JetBlue Airways | 68.4% | 72.2% | 5.30% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am310 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm393 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm219 flights62.4%
- 5pm–8pm298 flights60.5%
- 8pm–5am171 flights66.2%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.5% on time, against 78.7% for the 8am–11am 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 393 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSY to LGA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On MSY to LGA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 78.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.5%, a wide gap of 18.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am78.7%
- 11am–2pm76.5%
- 2–5pm62.4%
- 5–8pm60.5%
- 8pm–5am66.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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 79.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.6%, a spread of 21 points.
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 34,000 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. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 33,606 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 78.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.81%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
12.9% 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.
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.
The return leg runs 70.2% on time across 1,391 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 1,391 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 3.81% 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. 1,322 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 three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.9% of the 1,391 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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?
70.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 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 78.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.5%, 18 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 LGA74.7%
- Southwest Airlines on MSY to LGA72.7%
- American Airlines on MSY to LGA59.3%
- MSY to ATL, a related route82.2%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- MSY to IAH, a related route83.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record74.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record63.2%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.