Carrier route record
WNMSY→LGA
Southwest Airlines · New Orleans to New York
- Flights
- 333
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 333 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on MSY to LGA runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 46 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 322 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.1%
Every carrier on MSY to LGA, 1,391 flights
These figures cover 333 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MSY to LGA
Southwest flew 333 of the 1,391 flights on MSY to LGA, about 24% of it. Its 72.7% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 74.7% 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 | 689 | 74.7% | 91 min | 4.93% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin 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+ |
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 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–11am206 flights75.5%
- 11am–2pm119 flights70.2%
- 2pm–5pm8 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 70.2% on time against 75.5% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 206 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MSY to LGA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202526 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202582 flights63.8%
- Jan–Mar 202685 flights78.8%
- Apr–Jun 202687 flights69.4%
- Jul–Sep 202653 flights74.5%
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 Jan–Mar 2026 at 78.8% 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 86.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 54.1%, a spread of 32 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on MSY to LGA runs when it is late
The 88 late arrivals split 35 under half an hour, 34 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 19 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early33 flights10.2%
- Within 15 min201 flights62.4%
- 15–29 min late35 flights10.9%
- 30–59 min late34 flights10.6%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights3.7%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 322 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
21 of 95 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on MSY to LGA
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 June 2026, 5 hours 59 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 June 2026 | 5 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 December 2025 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 October 2025 | 3 hours 53 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 12 December 2025 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 July 2026 | 2 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
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 4,594 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 36%National Airspace System
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
36% 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 1,655 minutes out of 4,594, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,594 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,872 of the 4,594 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 50 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 53.9% on time across 333 flights, 19 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 19 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 LGA74.7%
- American Airlines on MSY to LGA59.3%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.