Route reliability record
DFW→MSP
Dallas-Fort Worth to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 3,259
- Period
- July 2025 to June 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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,259 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,411 at 81.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,174 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
81.6% on time across 1,411 flights
These figures cover 3,259 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to MSP
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 81.6% of the time; American Airlines manages 66.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,616 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 | 1,411 | 81.6% | 87 min | 1.42% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 229 | 79.5% | 103 min | 1.31% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,616 | 66.2% | 67 min | 3.40% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 30 min | 0.00% | F+ |
American Airlines cancels 3.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 33 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am651 flights86.4%
- 8am–11am384 flights83.7%
- 11am–2pm556 flights71.9%
- 2pm–5pm721 flights71.2%
- 5pm–8pm662 flights68.7%
- 8pm–5am285 flights53.4%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 53.4% on time, against 86.4% for the 5am–8am 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.
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. October was the busiest month here, with 298 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 77.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.9%. 10 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 62,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
48% 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 62,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 62,437 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 86.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.39% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. 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 76.4% on time across 3,261 flights, within 3 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 3,259 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. 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. 3,174 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.1% of the 3,259 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 DFW to MSP?
Delta Air Lines leads at 81.6% on time across 1,411 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 66.2%, 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 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 53.4%, 33 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
- Envoy Air on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record79.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.