Route reliability record

CLT→MSP

Charlotte to Minneapolis

Flights: 2,447
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 930 mi
Carriers: 2

This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrive 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 2,447 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,183 at 85.2% on time.

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 51 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,400 completed flights

Avg delay

75 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.63%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Delta

85.2% on time across 1,183 flights

These figures cover 2,447 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 CLT to MSP

The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on CLT to MSP
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,183	85.2%	95 min	1.35%	A
American Airlines	1,264	80.3%	61 min	1.90%	B

No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 85.2%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

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 20 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am497 flights92.3%
8am–11am166 flights89.5%
11am–2pm729 flights86.6%
2pm–5pm387 flights73.8%
5pm–8pm407 flights76.2%
8pm–5am261 flights72.1%

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.3% of the time, against 72.1% for the overnight window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 729 flights scheduled in it.

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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

July is the worst month at 73.4% on time, 18 points below April, the best at 91.4%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 225 flights.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.6%. 9 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 50% of the 31,000 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.

Carrier
50%
Late-arriving aircraft
38%
National Airspace System
7%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 31,082 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, 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 15,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

6.2% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 930 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 80.9% on time across 2,446 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.

The sample behind these figures is 2,447 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.

What to do with this

Booking this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 91.4% on time and July 73.4%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,400 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

CLT to MSP questions

How often is CLT to MSP delayed?

About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.3% of the 2,447 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on CLT to MSP?

Delta Air Lines leads at 85.2% on time across 1,183 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 80.3%, a gap of 5 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to MSP?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.1%, 20 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 July delays on CLT to MSP?

July is the weakest month at 73.4% on time, compared with 91.4% in April. 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.

Where to go next

Direction matters. CLT to MSP and MSP to CLT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures