Carrier route record
MQMSY→ORD
Envoy Air · New Orleans to Chicago
- Flights
- 465
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Envoy Air.
Envoy on MSY to ORD lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 465 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 842 at 82.3% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, Envoy's MSY to ORD record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 45 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 453 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.72%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.1%
Every carrier on MSY to ORD, 2,400 flights
These figures cover 465 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
Envoy against every carrier on MSY to ORD
Envoy flew 465 of the 2,400 flights on MSY to ORD, about 19% of it. Its 82.1% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 82.3% to Frontier at 63.6%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 82.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 70.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 400 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 842 | 82.3% | 79 min | 1.19% | B |
| Envoy Air (this page) | 465 | 82.1% | 68 min | 1.72% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 336 | 78.0% | 73 min | 2.68% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 131 | 72.9% | 61 min | 1.53% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 215 | 70.5% | 67 min | 6.51% | C− |
| American Airlines | 400 | 70.3% | 137 min | 2.25% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 11 | 63.6% | 67 min | 0.00% | D+ |
The spread between United and American is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Departure window
When Envoy runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 33 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am49 flights95.9%
- 8am–11am72 flights80.6%
- 11am–2pm213 flights82.3%
- 2pm–5pm87 flights84.3%
- 5pm–8pm44 flights62.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.5% on time, against 95.9% for the 5am–8am 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 213 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Envoy on MSY to ORD through the year
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 70.2%. July is the strongest month at 90.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 20 points. January was the busiest month here, with 63 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.0%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Envoy runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 5,484 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 5,484 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 5,484 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 95.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.72% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.86%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.5% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 837 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 runs 83.8% on time across 466 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 465 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 Envoy on MSY to ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 465 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 82.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 453 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSY to ORD, every carrier
- Envoy on ORD to MSY, the return leg
- United Airlines on MSY to ORD82.3%
- Republic Airways on MSY to ORD78.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on MSY to ORD72.9%
- Spirit Airlines on MSY to ORD70.5%
- American Airlines on MSY to ORD70.3%
- Envoy Air network-wide record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.