Route reliability record
GEG→MSP
Spokane to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 774
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,175 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 13 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.2 hours. That rests on 774 GEG to MSP flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Best time to fly GEG to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 94.3%, against 90.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 13 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 129 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
90.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 767 completed flights
Avg delay
130 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.78%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
90.2% on time across 774 flights
These figures cover 774 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 GEG 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 Lines | 774 | 90.2% | 130 min | 0.78% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on GEG 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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 774 flights.
- 5am–8am365 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm68 flights83.6%
- 2pm–5pm341 flights90.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 83.6% on time against 90.9% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter GEG 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 GEG to MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.9% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 83.6%, a real gap of 7.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.9%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm83.6%
- 2–5pm90.8%
- 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 16 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.
Delays peak in November, when the on-time rate falls to 81.0%. July is the strongest month at 96.7%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 16 points. July was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 94.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 85.7%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 70% of the 9,724 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%Carrier
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,785 of the 9,724 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,724 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.78%, 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.4% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 1,175 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 82.1% on time across 774 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 774 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MSP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 774 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 90.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 767 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GEG to MSP questions
How often is GEG to MSP delayed?
About one flight in ten arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 9.8% of the 774 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.2 hours on average.
How reliable is GEG to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
90.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 13 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on GEG to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 83.6%, 7 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 November delays on GEG to MSP?
November is the weakest month at 81.0% on time, compared with 96.7% in July. Across the year that is 16 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 GEG — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- GEG to SEA, a related route85.7%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- GEG to DEN, a related route84.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record90.2%
- The most punctual routes in the US, and the least
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. GEG to MSP and MSP to GEG 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.