Carrier performance at one airport
DL→MCI
Delta Air Lines at Kansas City International
- Departures
- 8,118
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 8
- Rank here
- #1 of 11
Delta Air Lines at Kansas City earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 8,118 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 8,118 at 86.4% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs 6 points ahead of the 80.1% weighted average across all carriers at MCI. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
86.4%
7,930 completed departures
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.93%
At MCI, this carrier only
Rank here
#1
Of 11 carriers clearing the floor at MCI
These figures cover 8,118 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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.
Against the competition
Every carrier at MCI, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 73.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 578 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 8,118 | 86.4% | 89 min | 1.93% | A |
| Alaska Airlines | 1,078 | 86.1% | 64 min | 0.65% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 5,019 | 81.4% | 105 min | 2.03% | B |
| Envoy Air | 1,586 | 81.1% | 70 min | 2.40% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 594 | 80.7% | 69 min | 3.70% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 1,592 | 80.4% | 94 min | 3.08% | B− |
| United Airlines | 3,744 | 79.5% | 81 min | 1.36% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 23,435 | 78.1% | 53 min | 0.76% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 2,584 | 76.8% | 110 min | 2.44% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 993 | 74.6% | 124 min | 8.26% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 578 | 73.0% | 90 min | 0.52% | C+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where Delta Air Lines flies from MCI
Delta Air Lines operates 8 routes out of MCI with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MCI to ATL · Atlanta | 2,708 | 89.4% | 74 min | 1.48% | A |
| MCI to DTW · Detroit | 1,326 | 87.9% | 84 min | 1.28% | A |
| MCI to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,005 | 87.0% | 61 min | 0.90% | A+ |
| MCI to LGA · New York | 972 | 78.4% | 109 min | 6.28% | B− |
| MCI to MSP · Minneapolis | 760 | 86.2% | 105 min | 1.45% | A |
| MCI to LAX · Los Angeles | 616 | 91.8% | 83 min | 0.49% | A+ |
| MCI to BOS · Boston | 365 | 68.5% | 120 min | 2.74% | C |
| MCI to SEA · Seattlethin sample | 364 | 87.0% | 75 min | 1.65% | A |
Flight by flight
Delta Air Lines flight numbers from MCI
9 Delta Air Lines flight numbers leaving MCI flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am2,663 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am1,474 flights87.0%
- 11am–2pm828 flights84.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,457 flights85.4%
- 5pm–8pm1,596 flights79.1%
- 8pm–5am100 flights74.2%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.2% of the time, against 74.2% for the overnight window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 2,663 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 76.0% on time, against 89.7% in May. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 792 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 46%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 95,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 95,331 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.93% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.38%.
5.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 sample behind these figures is 8,118 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 89.7% on time and December 76.0%, a swing of 14 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 7,930 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Delta Air Lines at MCI
How often is Delta Air Lines at MCI delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.6% of the 8,118 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Delta Air Lines at MCI?
Delta Air Lines leads at 86.4% on time across 8,118 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 73.0%, a gap of 13 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Delta Air Lines at MCI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 74.2%, 18 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on Delta Air Lines at MCI?
December is the weakest month at 76.0% on time, compared with 89.7% in May. Across the year that is 14 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.