Route reliability record
BZN→MSP
Bozeman to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 807
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 874 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 14 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 807 BZN to MSP flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Best time to fly BZN to MSP: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.0% of the time and Thursday flights 95.6%, against 91.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 14 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 141 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
91.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 800 completed flights
Avg delay
93 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.74%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
91.4% on time across 807 flights
These figures cover 807 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 BZN 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 | 807 | 91.4% | 93 min | 0.74% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on BZN 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 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am350 flights94.5%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm174 flights96.0%
- 2pm–5pm283 flights84.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 96.0% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 84.8%. 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 350 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BZN 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 BZN to MSP, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 96.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 84.8%, a wide gap of 11.2 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am94.5%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm96.0%
- 2–5pm84.8%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
January is the weak month at 80.9% on time, against 98.4% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 95.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 87.6%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 6,384 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 25% 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 4.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 6,384 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,415 of the 6,384 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, 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 actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.6% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 874 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 80.0% on time across 807 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 807 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. 807 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 91.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 800 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BZN to MSP questions
How often is BZN to MSP delayed?
About one flight in twelve arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 8.6% of the 807 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is BZN to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
91.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 14 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BZN to MSP?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 96.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 84.8%, 11 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 January delays on BZN to MSP?
January is the weakest month at 80.9% on time, compared with 98.4% in May. Across the year that is 18 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 BZN — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- BZN to DEN, a related route77.5%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- BZN to SEA, a related route84.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record91.4%
- Flying to ski country: which routes into the mountains run on time
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
Direction matters. BZN to MSP and MSP to BZN 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.