Carrier route record

AAPHX→MSY

American Airlines · Phoenix to New Orleans

Flights: 376
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 PHX to MSY sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 376 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

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

On time

75.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 372 completed flights

Avg delay

69 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.80%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

71.7%

Every carrier on PHX to MSY, 934 flights

These figures cover 376 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 PHX to MSY

American flew 376 of the 934 flights on PHX to MSY, about 40% of it. Its 75.5% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 75.5% to Southwest at 69.0%. 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 PHX to MSY
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)	376	75.5%	69 min	0.80%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	4	75.0%	24 min	0.00%	B+
Envoy Airthin sample	4	75.0%	21 min	0.00%	B+
Southwest Airlines	550	69.0%	52 min	0.36%	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 27 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–11am89 flights85.1%
11am–2pm195 flights76.3%
2pm–5pm7 flights—
5pm–8pm67 flights57.6%
8pm–5am18 flights—

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.6% on time, against 85.1% for the 8am–11am 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 195 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHX to MSY through the year

Jul–Sep 202535 flights80.0%
Oct–Dec 202581 flights76.5%
Jan–Mar 2026131 flights75.6%
Apr–Jun 2026129 flights73.6%

Scale runs 65% to 85%. 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 75.5% on time across 376 flights.

Quarter by quarter American on PHX to MSY held fairly steady: 80.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 76.5% in Oct–Dec 2025, 75.6% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 73.6% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 6 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.0%. 27 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 44% of the 6,279 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
44%
Carrier
42%
National Airspace System
13%
Extreme weather
0%

44% 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 6,279 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 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 6,279 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 2,659 of the 6,279 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.80%, 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

8.3% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

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 77.1% on time across 378 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. 376 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 PHX to MSY

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 376 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 75.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 372 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