Route reliability record
BDL→MSP
Hartford to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 832
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,050 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 832 BDL to MSP flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly BDL to MSP: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.5%, against 83.0% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 807 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.40%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
83.0% on time across 832 flights
These figures cover 832 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BDL 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 832 | 83.0% | 69 min | 2.40% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on BDL 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.
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 13 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am364 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm126 flights88.7%
- 2pm–5pm183 flights81.9%
- 5pm–8pm159 flights75.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 88.7% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 75.8%. 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 68.4% on time, against 90.5% in October. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 85 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.2%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 53% of the 9,493 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.
- 53%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, 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 4,985 of the 9,493 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,493 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.40% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.60%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.3% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,050 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 81.2% on time across 833 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. 832 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. 832 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 83.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 807 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BDL to MSP questions
How often is BDL 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 17.0% of the 832 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is BDL to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
83.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BDL to MSP?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 88.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 75.8%, 13 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 December delays on BDL to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 68.4% on time, compared with 90.5% in October. Across the year that is 22 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 BDL — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- BDL to ORD, a related route74.0%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.7%
- BDL to ATL, a related route83.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. BDL to MSP and MSP to BDL 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.