Carrier route record
DLBIS→MSP
Delta Air Lines · Bismarck to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 348
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on BIS to MSP 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 348 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Delta's BIS to MSP record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 63 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.29%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
84.7%
Every carrier on BIS to MSP, 989 flights
These figures cover 348 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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
Delta against every carrier on BIS to MSP
Delta flew 348 of the 989 flights on BIS to MSP, about 35% of it. Its 83.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 84.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 85.4% to Delta at 83.6%.
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 | 641 | 85.4% | 88 min | 0.94% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page)thin sample | 348 | 83.6% | 82 min | 0.29% | B+ |
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Departure window
When Delta 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 348 flights.
- 5am–8am198 flights81.2%
- 8am–11am141 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm9 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 86.5% on time for the 8am–11am window against 81.2% for 5am–8am. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 198 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on BIS to MSP through the year
December is the weak month at 58.1% on time, against 96.7% in March. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Saturday the weakest at 79.2%, a spread of 9 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on BIS to MSP runs when it is late
Delta on BIS to MSP often beats the schedule: 147 of 347 completed flights, 42%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 57 late arrivals split 16 under half an hour, 23 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 18 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early147 flights42.4%
- Within 15 min143 flights41.2%
- 15–29 min late16 flights4.6%
- 30–59 min late23 flights6.6%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights2.9%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 347 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 43 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 5 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 19 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MSP.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on BIS to MSP
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 July 2026, 12 hours 26 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 23 July 2026 | 12 hours 26 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 May 2026 | 9 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 December 2025 | 5 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 November 2025 | 3 hours 26 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 June 2026 | 2 hours 58 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 77% of the 4,665 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 77%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 77%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,572 of the 4,665 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,665 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.29%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.2% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 386 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.4% on time across 348 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 348 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 Delta on BIS to MSP
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 348 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 83.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 347 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.