Carrier route record
WNMSY→LGA
Southwest Airlines · New Orleans to New York
- Flights
- 333
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 23%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MSY to LGA sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 333 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on MSY to LGA runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 322 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.40%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.6%
Every carrier on MSY to LGA, 1,421 flights
These figures cover 333 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 LGA
Southwest flew 333 of the 1,421 flights on MSY to LGA, about 23% of it. Its 72.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 76.9% to Frontier at 50.0%. Three 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 | 719 | 76.9% | 91 min | 4.45% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin 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+ |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 333 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am153 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm172 flights71.5%
- 2pm–5pm8 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 75.8% on time for the 8am–11am window against 71.5% for 11am–2pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 172 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MSY to LGA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202579 flights79.2%
- Oct–Dec 202582 flights63.8%
- Jan–Mar 202685 flights78.8%
- Apr–Jun 202687 flights69.4%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. 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 72.7% on time across 333 flights.
Southwest on MSY to LGA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 79.2% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 63.8%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 83 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 52.5%. 32 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
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 4,627 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 37%National Airspace System
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
37% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,703 minutes out of 4,627, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,627 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,716 of the 4,627 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.40% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.90%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.6% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 55.0% on time across 333 flights, 18 points below 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 18 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 333 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 LGA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 333 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 72.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 322 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSY to LGA, every carrier
- Southwest on LGA to MSY, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on MSY to LGA76.9%
- American Airlines on MSY to LGA60.7%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Late aircraft, weather, or the airline: what actually causes US flight delays
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.