Route reliability record
ABR→MSP
Aberdeen to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 754
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 257 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 12 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.9 hours. That rests on 754 ABR to MSP flights, with a median arrival 16 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 12 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 123 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
89.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 742 completed flights
Avg delay
174 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.46%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
89.6% on time across 754 flights
These figures cover 754 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 16 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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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ABR to MSP
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 754 | 89.6% | 174 min | 1.46% | A |
Flight by flight
Flights on ABR to MSP
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Departure window
The best time of day to leave
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 754 flights.
- 5am–8am364 flights89.2%
- 8am–11am14 flights—
- 11am–2pm16 flights—
- 2pm–5pm360 flights89.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 80% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5am–8am window is the strongest at 89.2% on time. The full set of windows spans half a point.
Explore
Filter ABR to MSP by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ABR to MSP there are not enough flights to split by departure window.
- 5–8am89.2%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm89.2%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
December is the weak month at 78.9% on time, against 100.0% in May. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 77 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 93.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 87.9%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 74% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 74%Carrier
- 22%Extreme weather
- 3%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 22% 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 3.7 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,402 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 74%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,880 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.46% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.7% 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 about 2.9 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 257 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 87.6% on time across 754 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 754 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MSP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 754 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 89.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 742 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ABR to MSP questions
How often is ABR to MSP delayed?
About one flight in ten arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 10.4% of the 754 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.9 hours on average.
How reliable is ABR to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
89.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 12 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
Does the departure time change the odds on ABR to MSP?
Not by much in this data. Every departure window falls within half a point of the others, so there is no hour worth rearranging a trip for. The overall rate of 89.6% is the figure to plan against.
How bad are December delays on ABR to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 78.9% on time, compared with 100.0% in May. Across the year that is 21 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
- MSP to ABR — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- DEN to MSP, a related route78.5%
- ATL to MSP, a related route79.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record89.6%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ABR to MSP and MSP to ABR are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.