Carrier route record
AAMSY→MIA
American Airlines · New Orleans to Miami
- Flights
- 1,307
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 85%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on MSY to MIA lands a B, 3 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 1,307 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on MSY to MIA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,287 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.30%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.8%
Every carrier on MSY to MIA, 1,529 flights
These figures cover 1,307 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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
American against every carrier on MSY to MIA
American flew 1,307 of the 1,529 flights on MSY to MIA, most of the route. Its 80.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 80.5% to Republic at 66.7%. Four 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 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+ |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
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–11am321 flights83.9%
- 11am–2pm75 flights79.7%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm318 flights67.4%
- 8pm–5am—
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 67.4% for the evening 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
American on MSY to MIA through the year
August is the worst month at 72.2% on time, 17 points below November, the best at 88.8%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 133 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.9%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 54% of the 22,000 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.
- 54%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, 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 12,000 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 22,433 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 85.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.30% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here 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 71.8% on time across 1,310 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,307 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on MSY to MIA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 88.8% on time and August 72.2%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,287 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSY to MIA, every carrier
- American on MIA to MSY, the return leg
- Envoy Air on MSY to MIA79.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.