Carrier route record
AAPHL→MSY
American Airlines · Philadelphia to New Orleans
- 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 PHL to MSY 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 621 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHL to MSY from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 607 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.61%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.1%
Every carrier on PHL to MSY, 1,117 flights
These figures cover 621 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 PHL to MSY
American flew 621 of the 1,117 flights on PHL to MSY, most of the route. Its 80.1% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.1%. 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 73.4%. 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 | 36 | 88.6% | 46 min | 2.78% | A |
| American Airlines (this page) | 621 | 80.1% | 83 min | 1.61% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 298 | 75.2% | 100 min | 5.03% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 162 | 73.4% | 78 min | 1.85% | 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 19 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–8am—
- 8am–11am298 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm145 flights81.0%
- 2pm–5pm49 flights66.0%
- 5pm–8pm85 flights68.7%
- 8pm–5am44 flights81.4%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.9% of the time, against 66.0% for the afternoon window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 298 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to MSY through the year
December is the weak month at 54.8% on time, against 92.1% in July. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. April was the busiest month here, with 83 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.7%. 9 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 55% of the 10,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% 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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 26 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 10,027 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.61% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.64%.
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 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 81.6% 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 PHL to MSY
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 80.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 607 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to MSY, every carrier
- American on MSY to PHL, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on PHL to MSY75.2%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to MSY73.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) 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.