Carrier route record

WNAUS→MSP

Southwest Airlines · Austin to Minneapolis

Flights: 339
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 20%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on AUS to MSP draws a C+. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about 45 minutes behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 339 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on AUS to MSP runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 112 extra late arrivals.

On time

66.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 339 completed flights

Avg delay

44 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.00%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

78.0%

Every carrier on AUS to MSP, 1,684 flights

These figures cover 339 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

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Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on AUS to MSP

Southwest flew 339 of the 1,684 flights on AUS to MSP, about 20% of it. Its 66.1% on time is 12 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 85.3% to Southwest at 66.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on AUS to MSP
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	323	85.3%	109 min	0.31%	A+
Delta Air Lines	1,022	79.6%	89 min	1.27%	B
Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample	339	66.1%	44 min	0.00%	C+

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Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

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 339 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am29 flights—
11am–2pm117 flights67.5%
2pm–5pm142 flights61.3%
5pm–8pm25 flights—
8pm–5am26 flights—

Scale runs 55% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 67.5% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 61.3%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 142 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on AUS to MSP through the year

Jul–Sep 202526 flights—
Oct–Dec 2025115 flights67.8%
Jan–Mar 202655 flights56.4%
Apr–Jun 202682 flights62.2%
Jul–Sep 202661 flights65.6%

Scale runs 50% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 66.1% on time across 339 flights.

Southwest on AUS to MSP did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 67.8% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 56.4%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 85 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.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 54.7%, a spread of 27 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Southwest on AUS to MSP runs when it is late

The 115 late arrivals split 50 under half an hour, 40 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 25 an hour or more.

15+ min early41 flights12.1%
Within 15 min183 flights54.0%
15–29 min late50 flights14.7%
30–59 min late40 flights11.8%
1–2 hours late19 flights5.6%
2+ hours late6 flights1.8%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 339 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

24 of 125 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. 14 flights left on time and still arrived late.

The worst days

Worst days for Southwest on AUS to MSP

The latest arrival of the period was on 30 April 2026, 3 hours 46 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across April, March, July and December, with no single month standing out.

The latest arrivals of Southwest on AUS to MSP in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
30 April 2026	3 hours 46 minutes	Carrier
15 March 2026	2 hours 42 minutes	National Airspace System
15 July 2026	2 hours 39 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
19 December 2025	2 hours 25 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
28 December 2025	2 hours 16 minutes	National Airspace System

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 5,095 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
46%
Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
17%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
1%

46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,095 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 to one. The split is drawn from 5,095 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,817 of the 5,095 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here 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 about 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 1,042 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.6% on time across 339 flights, 13 points above 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 13 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 339 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 Southwest on AUS to MSP

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 339 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 66.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 339 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures