Route profile
HOU→MSY
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Houston to New Orleans, 302 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 86% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 7,056 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
HOU → MSY arrives on time 83.0% of the time; the return trip, MSY → HOU, arrives on time 78.7% of the time, a 4.3-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
HOU → MSY spends 16.5 minutes on the ground on a 302-mile trip: 11.9 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at HOU and 4.5 minutes from touchdown to gate at MSY.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where HOU to MSY differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
HOU to MSY is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 5 PM: 81.8% arrive on time, 10.5 points ahead of the 71.3% those routes manage at that hour. Against all other routes the gap is 12 points.
HOU to MSY holds up on Sundays better than routes of similar length do: 81.0% on time to their 75.7%, a 5.3 points lead. Against all other routes the gap is 6.2 points.
August is kinder to HOU to MSY than to routes of similar length: 87.2% on time against 78.9%, 8.3 points better. Against all other routes the gap is 10.7 points.
Southwest Airlines does better on HOU to MSY than on its routes of similar length: 83.0% on time here, 80.5% there, 2.5 points apart. Against all other routes the gap is 5.6 points.
HOU to MSY against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 5 PM departures | 81.8% | routes of similar length | 71.3% | +10.5 pts | 368 here, 57,693 there |
| Weekday: Sunday | 81.0% | routes of similar length | 75.7% | +5.3 pts | 1,058 here, 130,384 there |
| Month: August | 87.2% | routes of similar length | 78.9% | +8.3 pts | 548 here, 75,548 there |
| Airline: Southwest Airlines | 83.0% | routes of similar length | 80.5% | +2.5 pts | 6,998 here, 260,551 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 302 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why HOU → MSY flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
HOU → MSY cancelled 50 of 7,056 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 141. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 78.0% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 181 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 50 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
39 cancellations, 78.0% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
6 cancellations, 12.0% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
5 cancellations, 10.0% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
50 coded cancellations were recorded on HOU → MSY; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
29 min late
against a median of 7 min early
Percentiles over 7,056 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at MSY after arriving from HOU.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 32% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 16% | High risk |
| 60 min | 9.7% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.5% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.5% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 0.71% of the time and diverts 0.11% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 6,998 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 29 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 7,056 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
HOU → MSY flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 95.3% of the time, against 74.2% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 21.1 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 96.4% on time from 227 flights
- 6 AM: 96.0% on time from 453 flights
- 7 AM: 95.4% on time from 400 flights
- 8 AM: 94.4% on time from 765 flights
- 9 AM: 90.0% on time from 170 flights
- 10 AM: 87.6% on time from 380 flights
- 11 AM: 87.0% on time from 420 flights
- 12 PM: 83.0% on time from 282 flights
- 1 PM: 78.6% on time from 293 flights
- 2 PM: 74.3% on time from 560 flights
- 3 PM: 78.6% on time from 337 flights
- 4 PM: 69.1% on time from 293 flights
- 5 PM: 81.8% on time from 369 flights
- 6 PM: 75.0% on time from 519 flights
- 7 PM: 75.6% on time from 247 flights
- 8 PM: 78.7% on time from 557 flights
- 9 PM: 75.1% on time from 436 flights
- 10 PM: 73.0% on time from 348 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why HOU → MSY runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for HOU → MSY. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on HOU → MSY, at 53.5%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 95.3% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 74.2%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 7,056 | 83.0% | 0.71% | -7 min | 4.6% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 7.7 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 83.8%
- Feb: 87.9%
- Mar: 81.6%
- Apr: 84.4%
- May: 76.8%
- Jun: 75.8%
- Jul: 74.2%
- Aug: 87.2%
- Sep: 88.1%
- Oct: 84.0%
- Nov: 89.6%
- Dec: 85.2%
July is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 15.4 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 72.6% from 181 flights
- August 2023: 88.4% from 182 flights
- September 2023: 83.0% from 159 flights
- October 2023: 80.0% from 222 flights
- November 2023: 89.6% from 202 flights
- December 2023: 87.9% from 207 flights
- January 2024: 74.6% from 197 flights
- February 2024: 90.1% from 182 flights
- March 2024: 84.7% from 203 flights
- April 2024: 83.7% from 194 flights
- May 2024: 72.6% from 199 flights
- June 2024: 78.4% from 176 flights
- July 2024: 72.1% from 178 flights
- August 2024: 86.9% from 192 flights
- September 2024: 89.3% from 177 flights
- October 2024: 87.0% from 201 flights
- November 2024: 91.4% from 187 flights
- December 2024: 82.2% from 186 flights
- January 2025: 89.9% from 186 flights
- February 2025: 85.3% from 184 flights
- March 2025: 88.9% from 200 flights
- April 2025: 82.9% from 199 flights
- May 2025: 80.9% from 205 flights
- June 2025: 72.5% from 180 flights
- July 2025: 77.8% from 180 flights
- August 2025: 86.4% from 177 flights
- September 2025: 91.5% from 176 flights
- October 2025: 85.4% from 205 flights
- November 2025: 87.8% from 196 flights
- December 2025: 85.3% from 192 flights
- January 2026: 88.1% from 185 flights
- February 2026: 88.2% from 187 flights
- March 2026: 71.1% from 200 flights
- April 2026: 86.5% from 193 flights
- May 2026: 76.8% from 194 flights
- June 2026: 76.6% from 192 flights
- July 2026: 74.4% from 200 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 83.0% against 84.6% in the 12 months before — declining by 1.6 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 7,056 HOU → MSY flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed