Carrier performance at one airport
DL→MSP
Delta Air Lines at Minneapolis-St Paul International
- Departures
- 64,966
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #4 of 10
Delta Air Lines at Minneapolis lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 64,966 flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 1,211 at 80.8% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs half a point ahead of the 79.0% weighted average across all carriers at MSP. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
79.2%
64,079 completed departures
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.09%
At MSP, this carrier only
Rank here
#4
Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at MSP
These figures cover 65,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 MSP, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 80.8% of the time; Envoy Air manages 73.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,229 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 1,211 | 80.8% | 57 min | 1.32% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 27,320 | 80.1% | 87 min | 1.51% | B |
| Republic Airways | 1,392 | 79.3% | 77 min | 5.96% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 64,966 | 79.2% | 62 min | 1.09% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 5,820 | 78.7% | 56 min | 0.96% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 4,286 | 78.7% | 100 min | 2.36% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,184 | 74.9% | 93 min | 1.52% | C |
| United Airlines | 5,209 | 74.8% | 84 min | 1.17% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 1,046 | 74.7% | 137 min | 6.12% | C− |
| Envoy Air | 1,229 | 73.2% | 71 min | 3.09% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.1% 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 MSP
Delta Air Lines operates 25 routes out of MSP 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSP to ATL · Atlanta | 3,201 | 84.5% | 66 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| MSP to LAX · Los Angeles | 2,156 | 82.0% | 50 min | 0.83% | B+ |
| MSP to PHX · Phoenix | 2,074 | 78.8% | 64 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| MSP to LAS · Las Vegas | 2,007 | 81.1% | 62 min | 1.05% | B |
| MSP to DTW · Detroit | 1,887 | 82.1% | 65 min | 0.53% | B+ |
| MSP to MCO · Orlando | 1,866 | 75.6% | 76 min | 1.29% | B |
| MSP to BOS · Boston | 1,847 | 78.1% | 60 min | 1.08% | B |
| MSP to LGA · New York | 1,804 | 79.8% | 67 min | 2.44% | B |
| MSP to DEN · Denver | 1,804 | 76.0% | 59 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| MSP to SEA · Seattle | 1,737 | 82.1% | 60 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| MSP to DCA · Washington | 1,695 | 75.6% | 60 min | 2.12% | B |
| MSP to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,596 | 84.1% | 52 min | 0.38% | B+ |
| MSP to SFO · San Francisco | 1,445 | 70.1% | 53 min | 0.76% | C+ |
| MSP to ORD · Chicago | 1,412 | 67.3% | 66 min | 1.84% | C |
| MSP to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 1,411 | 77.9% | 59 min | 1.35% | B |
| MSP to PDX · Portland | 1,329 | 81.1% | 52 min | 0.45% | B+ |
| MSP to SAN · San Diego | 1,314 | 77.5% | 48 min | 0.76% | B+ |
| MSP to IAH · Houston | 1,272 | 77.8% | 60 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| MSP to EWR · Newark | 1,260 | 75.5% | 73 min | 3.97% | B− |
| MSP to RDU · Raleigh | 1,227 | 81.5% | 56 min | 1.06% | B |
| MSP to RSW · Fort Myers | 1,215 | 77.8% | 68 min | 1.15% | B |
| MSP to BNA · Nashville | 1,213 | 82.6% | 49 min | 1.48% | B |
| MSP to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,211 | 81.9% | 74 min | 2.23% | B |
| MSP to CLT · Charlotte | 1,183 | 80.2% | 73 min | 1.27% | B |
| MSP to TPA · Tampa | 1,179 | 80.6% | 61 min | 0.93% | B+ |
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 16 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am8,226 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am13,574 flights83.1%
- 11am–2pm11,150 flights81.6%
- 2pm–5pm9,836 flights75.7%
- 5pm–8pm10,368 flights72.3%
- 8pm–5am11,812 flights75.4%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.1% of the time, against 72.3% for the evening window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 13,574 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 64.8% on time, against 87.1% in September. 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 6,541 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 51%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 18%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, 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 424,000 of the 826,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 825,832 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
6.7% 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
64,966 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 87.1% on time and December 64.8%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 64,079 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Delta Air Lines at MSP
How often is Delta Air Lines at MSP delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.8% of the 64,966 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Delta Air Lines at MSP?
Alaska Airlines leads at 80.8% on time across 1,211 flights. Envoy Air is at the other end on 73.2%, a gap of 8 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 MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.3%, 16 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 MSP?
December is the weakest month at 64.8% on time, compared with 87.1% in September. Across the year that is 22 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
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) all carriers
- MSP to ATL route record84.5%
- MSP to LAX route record82.0%
- MSP to PHX route record78.8%
- MSP to LAS route record81.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.