Route reliability record
DFW→MSP
Dallas-Fort Worth to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 3,311
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 852 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,311 DFW to MSP flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,413 at 81.4% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to MSP: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.4%, against 74.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,234 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
81.4% on time across 1,413 flights
These figures cover 3,311 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to MSP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 81.4% of the time; American Airlines manages 66.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,628 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,413 | 81.4% | 85 min | 1.42% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 267 | 79.2% | 82 min | 1.50% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,628 | 66.7% | 66 min | 2.76% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 30 min | 0.00% | F+ |
The spread between Delta and American is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW 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 Dallas-Fort Worth 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. DFW → MSPDallas-Fort Worth to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 80.2% | 81.4% | 1.42% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1276 06:50 |
| 2. DFW → MSPDallas-Fort Worth to Minneapolis | American Airlines | 64.9% | 66.7% | 2.76% | 8am–11am, Tue | AA 2806 21:15 |
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 35 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am682 flights87.0%
- 8am–11am264 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm684 flights73.1%
- 2pm–5pm721 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm658 flights67.7%
- 8pm–5am302 flights52.8%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.8% on time, against 87.5% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 721 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW 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 DFW to MSP, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 52.8%, a wide gap of 34.7 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am87.0%
- 8–11am87.5%
- 11am–2pm73.1%
- 2–5pm72.0%
- 5–8pm67.7%
- 8pm–5am52.8%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
June is the worst month at 62.0% on time, 19 points below February, the best at 81.4%. 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 314 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 61,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 61,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 60,970 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 21,000 of the 61,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.08% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 852 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 77.8% on time across 3,312 flights, 4 points above 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 3,311 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. February runs 81.4% on time and June 62.0%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,234 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to MSP questions
How often is DFW to MSP delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.0% of the 3,311 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to MSP?
Delta Air Lines leads at 81.4% on time across 1,413 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 66.7%, a gap of 15 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 DFW to MSP?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 52.8%, 35 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 June delays on DFW to MSP?
June is the weakest month at 62.0% on time, compared with 81.4% in February. Across the year that is 19 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 DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DFW to MSP81.4%
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to MSP79.2%
- American Airlines on DFW to MSP66.7%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record79.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DFW to MSP and MSP to DFW 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.