OnTimeStats

Historical on-time performance

Washington to New Orleans

969 miData through Dec 2025Source: US DOT · BTS

Flights on DCA–MSY arrive on time 70% of the time over the last 12 months.

On-time rate70%arrived within 15 min
p90 delay60 min1 in 10 flights is worse (tail risk)
Cancelled3.4%of scheduled flights

based on 1,692 flights over the last 12 months. On-time means arriving within 15 minutes (BTS standard).

By airline

How each carrier compares

  • Republic Airwaysbest
    On-time92%
    Medianon time
    p9010 min
    Cancel0.0%
    Flights60
  • Southwest Airlines
    On-time72%
    Medianon time
    p9045 min
    Cancel1.7%
    Flights707
  • American Airlines
    On-time74%
    Medianon time
    p9045 min
    Cancel1.4%
    Flights414
  • PSA Airlines
    On-time61%
    Medianon time
    p9075 min
    Cancel7.8%
    Flights511

Why flights run late

Delay causes

  • Airline22%
  • Weather4%
  • Air traffic (NAS)18%
  • Late aircraft55%
  • Security1%

Most delay minutes here are attributed to Late aircraft.

Over time

On-time trend

By season

On-time rate by month

When to fly

Best time to fly DCA → MSY

All airlines · rolling 36 months (2023-01 .. 2025-12).

Best time of day

Mornings are the most reliable time of day to fly this route — 84% on time.

  • Mornings84% on time · p90 20 min · 1,310 flights
  • Middays77% on time · p90 45 min · 2,071 flights
  • Afternoons75% on time · p90 45 min · 1,151 flights
  • Overnights75% on time · p90 45 min · 284 flights
  • Evenings67% on time · p90 70 min · 828 flights

Best day of week

On-time rates are fairly even by day on this route — ranging from 73% to 80% on time.

  • Tuesdays80% on time · p90 35 min · 826 flights
  • Saturdays79% on time · p90 35 min · 638 flights
  • Mondays79% on time · p90 45 min · 828 flights
  • Wednesdays76% on time · p90 35 min · 822 flights
  • Thursdays75% on time · p90 45 min · 808 flights
  • Fridays74% on time · p90 55 min · 818 flights
  • Sundays73% on time · p90 45 min · 904 flights
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Related pages

Methodology

A flight is on time when it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule — the US DOT / BTS standard. Median and p90(the “1-in-10 bad day”) are read from the full arrival-delay distribution, never averaged across periods.

Figures cover a carrier’s own BTS-coded flights. Cells below ~200 flights are flagged as limited data. All numbers are pre-computed from public BTS On-Time Performance data.