Route reliability record
DLH→MSP
Duluth to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,239
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 144 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,239 DLH to MSP flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Best time to fly DLH to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.8% of the time and Saturday flights 85.4%, against 82.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 52 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,206 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
82.5% on time across 1,237 flights
These figures cover 1,239 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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 DLH to MSP
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 Linesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,237 | 82.5% | 108 min | 2.59% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on DLH 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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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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am368 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am287 flights85.3%
- 11am–2pm282 flights82.7%
- 2pm–5pm301 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.8% of the time, against 72.1% for the afternoon window. That is 17 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 368 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DLH 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 DLH to MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 72.1%, a wide gap of 16.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.8%
- 8–11am85.3%
- 11am–2pm82.7%
- 2–5pm72.1%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
January is the weak month at 66.0% on time, against 94.3% in May. 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.9%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 70% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%Carrier
- 21%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 21% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 22,826 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.58%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.6% 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.
At 144 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 80.0% on time across 1,240 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 1,239 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. May runs 94.3% on time and January 66.0%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,206 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DLH to MSP questions
How often is DLH to MSP delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.5% of the 1,239 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is DLH to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
82.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DLH to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.1%, 17 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 January delays on DLH to MSP?
January is the weakest month at 66.0% on time, compared with 94.3% in May. Across the year that is 28 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 DLH — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- DLH to ORD, a related route69.0%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- DEN to MSP, a related route78.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record100.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. DLH to MSP and MSP to DLH 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.