Carrier route record
DLDCA→MSP
Delta Air Lines · Washington to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,695
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DCA to MSP lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,695 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on DCA to MSP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,658 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.06%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.3%
Every carrier on DCA to MSP, 2,574 flights
These figures cover 1,695 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on DCA to MSP
Delta flew 1,695 of the 2,574 flights on DCA to MSP, most of the route. Its 79.9% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 79.9% to PSA at 69.5%. Three 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,695 | 79.9% | 98 min | 2.06% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 214 | 76.2% | 71 min | 5.14% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 141 | 75.9% | 58 min | 2.84% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 41 | 72.5% | 62 min | 2.44% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 483 | 69.5% | 86 min | 4.35% | C− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on DCA to MSP
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 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–8am580 flights86.9%
- 8am–11am56 flights73.2%
- 11am–2pm371 flights79.3%
- 2pm–5pm331 flights74.8%
- 5pm–8pm357 flights74.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.9% of the time, against 73.2% for the morning window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 580 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DCA to MSP through the year
December is the weak month at 69.5% on time, against 91.6% 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. May was the busiest month here, with 146 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.5%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 33,000 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.
- 46%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, 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 33,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 32,813 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.06% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.6% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 931 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.6% on time across 1,695 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,695 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 Delta on DCA to MSP
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 91.6% on time and December 69.5%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,658 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to MSP, every carrier
- Delta on MSP to DCA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on DCA to MSP76.2%
- Envoy Air on DCA to MSP75.9%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to MSP69.5%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.