Carrier route record
AAMSY→PHL
American Airlines · New Orleans to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 621
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 56%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on MSY to PHL lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 2.4 hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 621 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's MSY to PHL record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 610 completed flights
Avg delay
145 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.61%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.5%
Every carrier on MSY to PHL, 1,117 flights
These figures cover 621 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on MSY to PHL
American flew 621 of the 1,117 flights on MSY to PHL, most of the route. Its 81.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 88.6% to Frontier at 72.6%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 37 | 88.6% | 99 min | 5.41% | A− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 621 | 81.6% | 145 min | 1.61% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 297 | 81.5% | 127 min | 5.39% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 162 | 72.6% | 110 min | 3.09% | 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 21 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–8am128 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am2 flights—
- 11am–2pm294 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm197 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.8% of the time, against 72.0% for the afternoon window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 294 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on MSY to PHL through the year
June is the worst month at 65.0% on time, 24 points below April, the best at 89.0%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 82 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.3%. 17 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 16,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
50% 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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 16,190 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 6,113 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.61% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,089 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 80.1% on time across 621 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. 621 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 American on MSY to PHL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 621 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 81.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 610 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSY to PHL, every carrier
- American on PHL to MSY, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on MSY to PHL81.5%
- Frontier Airlines on MSY to PHL72.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.