MSY to DCA flight delays
New Orleans, LA (MSY) Washington, VA (DCA) · 969 miles
142 flights · March 2025 – August 2026 · US Bureau of Transportation Statistics
65.19%
Arrived on time
Within 15 minutes of schedule
3.52%
Cancelled
Share of scheduled flights
114 min
When late, late by
Average across delayed arrivals
41 min
Delay per flight
Averaged over every flight flown
What the record says about this route
Cancellation, not delay, is the risk worth pricing here: 3.52% of scheduled flights never operated. A late flight still gets you there. A cancelled one leaves you rebooking, and on a route with few daily departures that can mean losing a day.
This is a late route. Flights from New Orleans to Washington miss their scheduled arrival often enough that a tight connection at the far end is a connection at risk.
Every airline on MSY to DCA
Ranked by how many flights each one operated. A carrier with fewer than 100 flights in the period is listed but not graded.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Avg delay | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 60 | 60.71% | 6.67% | 157 min | — |
| Southwest Airlines | 56 | 63.64% | 0% | 81 min | — |
| American Airlines | 26 | 79.17% | 3.85% | 59 min | — |
The return leg
DCA to MSY Washington back to New Orleans 69.4% on time FOther routes from New Orleans
Common questions
Are flights from New Orleans to Washington usually delayed?
65.19% of flights on the MSY to DCA route arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, so roughly 3 in every ten arrived late. That is worse than the average route in this record.
How often are MSY to DCA flights cancelled?
3.52% of scheduled flights did not operate — about 35 in every thousand. That is high enough that cancellation, not delay, is the risk worth planning around.
When MSY to DCA flights are late, how late are they?
About 114 minutes on average across the flights that arrived more than 15 minutes behind schedule.
What these figures do and do not tell you
Everything on this page is counted from the flights that actually operated on MSY to DCA during March 2025 – August 2026, as reported by the airlines to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. "On time" is the federal definition: arriving at the gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.
A route's record is a description of the past, not a forecast. Weather, air traffic control and the aircraft's earlier flights that day drive most delays, and none of them are predictable from a historical rate. What the record does tell you is whether this route runs late more often than others, and which carrier on it has the better history — which is the part you can actually act on when you book.
Cancellations are counted separately from delays because they are a different problem for a traveller: a late flight still gets you there. How the grade is calculated →