Kansas City, MO · departure reliability
MCI
Kansas City International
- Departures
- 48,793
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Carriers
- 11
- US rank
- #39 by volume
Kansas City
Kansas City International lands a B, 2 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 48,793 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 7,964 at 86.1% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the eleven carriers covered here at 86.1% on time across 7,964 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.2%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.51%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Delta
86.1% on time here
These figures cover 49,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of MCI
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.1% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 70.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 477 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 23,245 | 78.2% | 54 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 7,964 | 86.1% | 89 min | 1.93% | A |
| American Airlines | 5,198 | 76.9% | 106 min | 2.37% | B |
| United Airlines | 3,302 | 77.5% | 70 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,995 | 77.7% | 99 min | 2.11% | B |
| Envoy Air | 1,737 | 78.5% | 71 min | 2.42% | B |
| Republic Airways | 1,626 | 80.9% | 90 min | 2.28% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 1,050 | 70.1% | 111 min | 7.62% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 995 | 83.2% | 62 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 921 | 81.2% | 72 min | 2.61% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 477 | 70.0% | 95 min | 0.84% | C+ |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.6% 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
Busiest routes out of MCI
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from MCI, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 79.2%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MCI to DEN · Denver | 4,233 | 74.5% | 66 min | 0.57% | C+ |
| MCI to ORD · Chicago | 4,118 | 74.4% | 93 min | 2.50% | C |
| MCI to ATL · Atlanta | 3,290 | 86.7% | 73 min | 1.49% | A |
| MCI to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 2,545 | 72.9% | 93 min | 2.95% | C |
| MCI to PHX · Phoenix | 2,468 | 78.7% | 70 min | 0.73% | B+ |
| MCI to MDW · Chicago | 2,097 | 79.9% | 54 min | 1.10% | B |
| MCI to DAL · Dallas | 2,033 | 81.4% | 59 min | 1.18% | B |
| MCI to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,986 | 81.3% | 51 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| MCI to DCA · Washington | 1,926 | 74.1% | 80 min | 3.12% | C− |
| MCI to LGA · New York | 1,765 | 76.3% | 90 min | 4.59% | B− |
| MCI to MCO · Orlando | 1,567 | 78.6% | 57 min | 1.08% | B |
| MCI to BNA · Nashville | 1,391 | 82.6% | 56 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| MCI to DTW · Detroit | 1,361 | 87.5% | 87 min | 1.25% | A |
| MCI to LAX · Los Angeles | 1,260 | 82.0% | 58 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| MCI to CLT · Charlotte | 1,241 | 79.0% | 97 min | 2.34% | B |
| MCI to SEA · Seattle | 1,132 | 81.6% | 69 min | 1.24% | B |
| MCI to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,031 | 81.5% | 88 min | 1.84% | B |
| MCI to STL · St. Louis | 1,020 | 86.5% | 47 min | 0.49% | A+ |
| MCI to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,015 | 87.3% | 67 min | 1.18% | A |
| MCI to HOU · Houston | 1,003 | 81.5% | 51 min | 0.70% | B+ |
| MCI to PHL · Philadelphia | 903 | 78.5% | 109 min | 4.10% | B− |
| MCI to BWI · Baltimore | 891 | 81.6% | 51 min | 2.02% | B |
| MCI to AUS · Austin | 853 | 80.8% | 54 min | 0.35% | B+ |
| MCI to MIA · Miami | 759 | 82.5% | 76 min | 1.58% | B |
| MCI to TPA · Tampa | 672 | 77.5% | 55 min | 0.30% | B+ |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave MCI
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am12,014 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am7,370 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm8,241 flights81.4%
- 2pm–5pm9,973 flights73.7%
- 5pm–8pm9,139 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am2,056 flights64.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.9% on time, against 90.6% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in.
Across the year
When MCI runs late
MCI's year swings by 13 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
June is the worst month at 72.0% on time, 13 points below February, the best at 84.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.0%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why MCI gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 715,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 715,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.51% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.
7.1% 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 a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
48,793 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.
What to do with this
Flying out of MCI
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 84.9% on time and June 72.0%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else.
Common questions
MCI delay questions
How often is Kansas City (MCI) 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 48,793 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Kansas City (MCI)?
Delta Air Lines leads at 86.1% on time across 7,964 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 70.0%, a gap of 16 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 Kansas City (MCI)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.9%, 26 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 June delays on Kansas City (MCI)?
June is the weakest month at 72.0% on time, compared with 84.9% in February. Across the year that is 13 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.