Carrier route record

AAMSY→PHX

American Airlines · New Orleans to Phoenix

Flights: 378
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 40%
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 PHX lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 378 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on MSY to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 375 completed flights

Avg delay

104 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.79%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.8%

Every carrier on MSY to PHX, 936 flights

These figures cover 378 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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 PHX

American flew 378 of the 936 flights on MSY to PHX, about 40% of it. Its 77.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 78.4% to Envoy at 75.0%. Two 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.

On-time performance by carrier on MSY to PHX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlines	550	78.4%	50 min	0.18%	B+
American Airlines (this page)	378	77.1%	104 min	0.79%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	4	75.0%	48 min	0.00%	B+
Envoy Airthin sample	4	75.0%	26 min	0.00%	B+

Departure window

When American 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 378 flights.

5am–8am100 flights83.0%
8am–11am1 flights—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm89 flights78.2%
5pm–8pm188 flights73.3%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.0% of the time, against 73.3% for the evening window. That is 10 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 188 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on MSY to PHX through the year

Jul–Sep 202535 flights71.4%
Oct–Dec 202581 flights67.9%
Jan–Mar 2026132 flights82.2%
Apr–Jun 2026130 flights79.2%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. 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 77.1% on time across 378 flights.

American on MSY to PHX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 82.2% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 67.9%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 95 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.3%. 23 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 49% of the 8,914 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
49%
Carrier
38%
National Airspace System
8%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

49% 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 8,914 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 8,914 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 3,392 of the 8,914 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.79%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

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. 10.9% 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 1,301 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 75.5% on time across 376 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. 378 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 PHX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 378 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 77.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 375 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures