Flight number record
DL 1657
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Kansas City
- Route
- MSP → MCI
- Departs
- 21:30
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s DL 1657, check with Delta Air Lines.
DL 1657 lands a B−, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Key figures
On time
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 352 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.02%
National rate is 1.89%
1 hour+ late
7.4%
National rate is 8.3%
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 106 of 364 flights, with 21:35 (40 flights) and 21:55 (38 flights) next.
- Departs 21:30106 flights29.1%
- Departs 21:3540 flights11.0%
- Departs 21:5538 flights10.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
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 70.1%, and DL 1657 runs 6 points better at 76.1%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Against the route
DL 1657 next to MSP to MCI
Every carrier on MSP to MCI combined arrived on time 79.3% of the time across 1,088 flights, so DL 1657 is 3 points behind it. Delta flew 759 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 80.7% on time. Across its whole network Delta Air Lines managed 81.1%, which this flight trails by 5 points.
| Compared with | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DL 1657thin sample | 364 | 76.1% | 85 min | 3.02% | B− |
| All Delta Air Lines on MSP–MCI | 759 | 80.7% | 79 min | 1.45% | B |
| All carriers on MSP–MCI | 1,088 | 79.3% | 80 min | 1.56% | B |
| Delta Air Lines, whole network | 1,039,517 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.74% | B |
Across the year
DL 1657 quarter by quarter
DL 1657 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 69.7%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 73 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 202530 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights69.7%
- Jan–Mar 202689 flights82.6%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights76.1%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights71.2%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
By weekday, DL 1657 ranged from 72.3% on Saturday to 80.4% on Tuesday. With about 52 flights behind each day, a spread of 8 points is inside normal variation, so the day you fly is not worth changing for this flight.
Arrival by arrival
How late DL 1657 runs when it is late
DL 1657 often beats the schedule: 93 of 352 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 84 late arrivals split 33 under half an hour, 25 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 26 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early93 flights26.4%
- Within 15 min175 flights49.7%
- 15–29 min late33 flights9.4%
- 30–59 min late25 flights7.1%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights4.0%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 352 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 82 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 8 made it up before arrival. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for DL 1657
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 November 2025, 12 hours 28 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 November 2025 | 12 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 November 2025 | 11 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 April 2026 | 11 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 April 2026 | 11 hours | Carrier |
| 16 March 2026 | 4 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why DL 1657 runs late
Carrier accounts for 68% of the 7,132 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 68%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 68%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,875 of the 7,132 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,132 delay minutes reported on DL 1657.
Cancellations run at 3.02%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and routes
What a delay on this flight costs
7.4% 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.
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, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on DL 1657: 3.02% of its 364 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs an hour and a half, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.
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
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.