Carrier performance at one airport
OO→MSP
SkyWest Airlines at Minneapolis-St Paul International
- Departures
- 27,006
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #2 of 10
SkyWest Airlines at Minneapolis lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 27,006 flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 1,198 at 80.5% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, SkyWest Airlines runs about 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
80.2%
26,519 completed departures
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.50%
At MSP, this carrier only
Rank here
#2
Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at MSP
These figures cover 27,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Against the competition
Every carrier at MSP, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Alaska Airlines arrives on time 80.5% of the time; Envoy Air manages 73.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,233 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 1,198 | 80.5% | 55 min | 1.25% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 27,006 | 80.2% | 88 min | 1.50% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 5,895 | 79.4% | 57 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 1,495 | 79.1% | 77 min | 5.82% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 65,165 | 79.0% | 63 min | 1.09% | B |
| American Airlines | 4,360 | 78.5% | 100 min | 2.36% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,141 | 77.1% | 91 min | 1.58% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 950 | 74.8% | 116 min | 6.11% | C− |
| United Airlines | 5,093 | 74.7% | 84 min | 1.16% | C |
| Envoy Air | 1,233 | 73.0% | 67 min | 3.08% | 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 SkyWest Airlines flies from MSP
SkyWest Airlines 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 OMA · Omaha | 1,394 | 74.1% | 92 min | 1.15% | C |
| MSP to MOT · Minot | 1,279 | 80.9% | 87 min | 1.80% | B |
| MSP to DLH · Duluth | 1,143 | 81.6% | 114 min | 2.27% | B |
| MSP to ATW · Appleton | 1,028 | 77.9% | 109 min | 1.46% | B |
| MSP to MDW · Chicago | 978 | 77.1% | 67 min | 1.23% | B |
| MSP to GFK · Grand Forks | 953 | 82.8% | 78 min | 1.68% | B |
| MSP to FSD · Sioux Falls | 864 | 77.9% | 77 min | 1.27% | B |
| MSP to MEM · Memphis | 843 | 82.1% | 55 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| MSP to IAD · Washington | 816 | 80.7% | 66 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| MSP to GRB · Green Bay | 786 | 78.8% | 95 min | 1.65% | B |
| MSP to MKE · Milwaukee | 780 | 79.7% | 86 min | 1.28% | B |
| MSP to MSN · Madison | 758 | 79.7% | 75 min | 1.06% | B |
| MSP to ABR · Aberdeen | 754 | 87.4% | 116 min | 1.46% | A |
| MSP to BJI · Bemidji | 728 | 84.2% | 116 min | 1.51% | B |
| MSP to RHI · Rhinelander | 724 | 87.0% | 97 min | 2.49% | A |
| MSP to GRR · Grand Rapids | 680 | 81.0% | 71 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| MSP to ORD · Chicago | 668 | 68.0% | 93 min | 3.29% | C− |
| MSP to INL · International Falls | 657 | 83.9% | 97 min | 1.83% | B |
| MSP to SDF · Louisville | 651 | 82.1% | 59 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| MSP to BRD · Brainerd | 631 | 84.5% | 84 min | 1.58% | B |
| MSP to HIB · Hibbing | 628 | 83.4% | 85 min | 1.59% | B |
| MSP to FAR · Fargo | 621 | 84.7% | 58 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| MSP to BIS · Bismarck | 620 | 82.7% | 71 min | 0.81% | B+ |
| MSP to CID · Cedar Rapids | 405 | 74.6% | 78 min | 1.73% | C |
| MSP to ICT · Wichita | 381 | 80.1% | 71 min | 0.26% | B+ |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 27,000 flights.
- 5am–8am1,303 flights83.3%
- 8am–11am6,941 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm4,954 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm5,442 flights76.7%
- 5pm–8pm2,701 flights76.6%
- 8pm–5am5,665 flights80.9%
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 83.3% on time for the 5am–8am window against 76.6% for 5pm–8pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 58.7% on time, against 91.4% in October. 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.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 69%Carrier
- 21%Extreme weather
- 10%National Airspace System
- 0%Late-arriving aircraft
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 21% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.3 times the usual weather exposure.
Cancellations sit at 1.50% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
8.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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 an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
27,006 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. October runs 91.4% on time and December 58.7%, a swing of 33 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else.
Common questions
SkyWest Airlines at MSP
How often is SkyWest Airlines 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 19.8% of the 27,006 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SkyWest Airlines at MSP?
Alaska Airlines leads at 80.5% on time across 1,198 flights. Envoy Air is at the other end on 73.0%, 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 SkyWest Airlines at MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.6%, 7 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 SkyWest Airlines at MSP?
December is the weakest month at 58.7% on time, compared with 91.4% in October. Across the year that is 33 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.