Route reliability record
GRR→MSP
Grand Rapids to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,253
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 408 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 4 points 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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,253 GRR to MSP flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 595 at 81.4% on time.
Best time to fly GRR to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.0%, against 81.2% 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
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,236 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.20%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
81.4% on time across 595 flights
These figures cover 1,253 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 GRR to MSP
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 595 | 81.4% | 86 min | 1.34% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 658 | 81.1% | 81 min | 1.06% | B |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 81.4%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on GRR 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 Grand Rapids 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. GRR → MSPGrand Rapids to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 80.3% | 81.4% | 1.34% | 5am–8am, Mon | DL 2913 07:00 |
| 2. GRR → MSPGrand Rapids to Minneapolis | SkyWest Airlines | 80.2% | 81.1% | 1.06% | 5pm–8pm, 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 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights84.4%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm317 flights83.4%
- 2pm–5pm181 flights74.3%
- 5pm–8pm315 flights79.5%
- 8pm–5am75 flights80.8%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.4% of the time, against 74.3% for the afternoon window. That is 10 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter GRR 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 GRR to MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.4% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 74.3%, a wide gap of 10.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.4%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm83.4%
- 2–5pm74.3%
- 5–8pm79.5%
- 8pm–5am80.8%
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 35 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 55.9% on time, against 91.3% 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 120 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.8%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 61% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Carrier
- 15%Extreme weather
- 12%National Airspace System
- 12%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 15% 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 2.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 19,262 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.20% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.3% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 408 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 79.5% on time across 1,253 flights, within 2 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 1,253 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 91.3% on time and January 55.9%, a swing of 35 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,236 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GRR to MSP questions
How often is GRR 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 18.8% of the 1,253 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on GRR to MSP?
Delta Air Lines leads at 81.4% on time across 595 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 81.1%, a gap of half a point. 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 GRR to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 74.3%, 10 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 GRR to MSP?
January is the weakest month at 55.9% on time, compared with 91.3% in May. Across the year that is 35 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 GRR — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on GRR to MSP81.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on GRR to MSP81.1%
- GRR to ORD, a related route69.1%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- GRR to DTW, a related route79.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record81.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. GRR to MSP and MSP to GRR 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.