Flight number record
DL 1657
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Kansas City
- Route
- MSP → MCI
- Departs
- 21:30
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1657, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1657 sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 355 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.47%
National rate is 1.81%
1 hour+ late
8.2%
National rate is 8.1%
These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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.
Schedule
When DL 1657 flies
DL 1657 flies MSP to MCI without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 21:30, used on 83 of 364 flights, with 21:40 (56 flights) and 21:35 (40 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.
- Departs 21:3083 flights22.8%
- Departs 21:4056 flights15.4%
- Departs 21:3540 flights11.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.
A 21:30 departure sits in the 8pm–5am window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 70.5%, and DL 1657 runs 5 points better at 75.5%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Against the route
DL 1657 next to MSP to MCI
Every carrier on MSP to MCI combined arrived on time 78.4% of the time across 1,028 flights, so DL 1657 is 3 points behind it. Delta flew 677 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 79.0% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.6%, which this flight trails by 6 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1657thin sample | 364 | 75.5% | 85 min | 2.47% | B |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–MCI | 677 | 79.0% | 83 min | 1.33% | B |
| All carriers on MSP–MCI | 1,028 | 78.4% | 81 min | 1.46% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,038,570 | 81.6% | 71 min | 1.62% | B |
Across the year
DL 1657 quarter by quarter
DL 1657 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 82.6% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 69.7%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 91 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
- Jul–Sep 202592 flights73.9%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights69.7%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights82.6%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights76.1%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
By weekday, DL 1657 did best on Thursday at 80.0% on time and worst on Sunday at 66.7%. Each day rests on about 52 flights, so a gap of 13 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.
Delay causes
Why DL 1657 runs late
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 60% of the 7,434 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.
- 60%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, 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 4,494 of the 7,434 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,434 delay minutes reported on DL 1657.
Cancellations sit at 2.47% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
8.2% 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 last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
Every one of the 364 flights under DL 1657 in the data flew MSP to MCI. The number was not reused on any other city pair, which makes this a clean record of one route.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking DL 1657
For a booking, read DL 1657 as 75.5% on time with 2.47% cancelled over 364 flights. Those are rates from the past twelve months, not a forecast for any particular day.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to MCI, every carrier and departure
- MCI to MSP, the return direction
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record
- Every Delta Air Lines flight number with a record
- The most and least reliable flight numbers in the US
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
A flight number here means Delta Air Lines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.