Route reliability record
ANC→MSP
Anchorage to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 777
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,519 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 777 ANC to MSP flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly ANC to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.3%, against 82.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 55 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 769 completed flights
Avg delay
120 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.03%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
81.4% on time across 706 flights
These figures cover 777 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ANC 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 71 | 97.2% | 18 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 706 | 81.4% | 122 min | 1.13% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on ANC 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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am252 flights85.6%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm93 flights75.6%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am432 flights82.8%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 75.6% on time against 85.6% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 432 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ANC 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 ANC to MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.6% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 75.6%, a wide gap of 10.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.6%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm75.6%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am82.8%
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 17 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.
April is the best month on the calendar at 93.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.8%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 54% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 27 to one. The split is drawn from 15,875 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,538 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.03% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.5% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,519 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.0% on time across 777 flights, 10 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 777 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. 777 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 82.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 769 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ANC to MSP questions
How often is ANC to MSP delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.2% of the 777 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is ANC to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
82.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ANC to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.6% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 75.6%, 10 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 May delays on ANC to MSP?
May is the weakest month at 76.4% on time, compared with 93.3% in April. Across the year that is 17 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 ANC — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- ANC to SEA, a related route86.9%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- ANC to FAI, a related route88.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record97.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ANC to MSP and MSP to ANC 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.