Route reliability record
MSY→MIA
New Orleans to Miami
- Flights
- 1,529
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 674 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,529 MSY to MIA flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSY to MIA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 90.8%, against 79.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,503 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.44%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
80.5% on time across 1,307 flights
These figures cover 1,529 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSY to MIA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,307 | 80.5% | 89 min | 1.30% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 120 | 79.8% | 55 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 15 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 89 | 71.4% | 69 min | 5.62% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 9 | 66.7% | 101 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New Orleans to Miami
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 → MIANew Orleans to Miami | American Airlines | 79.5% | 80.5% | 1.30% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. MSY → FLLNew Orleans to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 76.2% | 78.8% | 3.31% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. MSY → FLLNew Orleans to Fort Lauderdale | Southwest Airlines | 73.8% | 74.0% | 0.27% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. MSY → FLLNew Orleans to Fort Lauderdale | JetBlue Airways | 70.0% | 71.3% | 1.88% | 5am–8am, 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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am593 flights85.8%
- 8am–11am336 flights84.0%
- 11am–2pm182 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm42 flights67.5%
- 5pm–8pm372 flights69.3%
- 8pm–5am4 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.8% of the time, against 67.5% for the afternoon window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 593 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
August is the worst month at 70.8% on time, 18 points below November, the best at 88.4%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 139 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.5%. 22 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 26,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 49%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% 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 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 25,727 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, 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 13,000 of the 26,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.44% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 674 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 72.8% on time across 1,532 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,529 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 MIA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 88.4% on time and August 70.8%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,503 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSY to MIA questions
How often is MSY to MIA delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.2% of the 1,529 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 MIA compared with the rest of the country?
79.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSY to MIA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.5%, 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 August delays on MSY to MIA?
August is the weakest month at 70.8% on time, compared with 88.4% in November. Across the year that is 18 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
- MIA to MSY — the return legseparate record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on MSY to MIA80.5%
- Envoy Air on MSY to MIA79.8%
- MSY to ATL, a related route83.3%
- ATL to MIA, a related route71.0%
- MSY to IAH, a related route82.2%
- American Airlines on-time record80.5%
- Envoy Air on-time record79.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record75.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. MSY to MIA and MIA 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.