Route reliability record
DEN→MSP
Denver to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 5,828
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 680 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 5,828 DEN to MSP flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,796 at 82.2% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.7%, against 78.5% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 82.2% on time across 1,796 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,778 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.70%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.2% on time across 1,796 flights
These figures cover 5,828 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 DEN to MSP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 72.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,682 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 226 | 90.0% | 88 min | 2.65% | A |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,796 | 82.2% | 68 min | 1.06% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,482 | 80.4% | 68 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 642 | 74.6% | 70 min | 0.62% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,682 | 72.7% | 52 min | 0.48% | C+ |
Delta leads Southwest by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN 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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver to Minneapolis
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → MSPDenver to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 81.3% | 82.2% | 1.06% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 1129 06:00 |
| 2. DEN → MSPDenver to Minneapolis | United Airlines | 80.2% | 80.4% | 0.27% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 397 09:35 |
| 3. DEN → MSPDenver to Minneapolis | Frontier Airlines | 74.1% | 74.6% | 0.62% | 5am–8am, Tue | F9 1292 21:00 |
| 4. DEN → MSPDenver to Minneapolis | Southwest Airlines | 72.4% | 72.7% | 0.48% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 25 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am740 flights91.9%
- 8am–11am1,114 flights88.9%
- 11am–2pm935 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm1,152 flights74.5%
- 5pm–8pm1,272 flights66.9%
- 8pm–5am615 flights72.5%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.9% of the time, against 66.9% for the evening window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,272 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN 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 DEN to MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.9%, a wide gap of 25.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.9%
- 8–11am88.9%
- 11am–2pm80.2%
- 2–5pm74.5%
- 5–8pm66.9%
- 8pm–5am72.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 68.3% on time, against 89.1% in April. 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 567 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.6%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 78,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 78,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 to one. The split is drawn from 77,903 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 91.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.70%, 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
7.2% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 680 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 runs 77.8% on time across 5,811 flights, within half a point 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 5,828 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MSP after this flight
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 89.1% on time and December 68.3%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 5,778 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to MSP questions
How often is DEN to MSP delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.5% of the 5,828 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MSP?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.2% on time across 1,796 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 72.7%, a gap of 10 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 DEN to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.9%, 25 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 DEN to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 68.3% on time, compared with 89.1% in April. Across the year that is 21 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 DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DEN to MSP90.0%
- Delta Air Lines on DEN to MSP82.2%
- United Airlines on DEN to MSP80.4%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to MSP74.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to MSP72.7%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record90.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.2%
- United Airlines on-time record80.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DEN to MSP and MSP to DEN 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.