Route reliability record
JFK→MSP
New York to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 750
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,029 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 750 JFK to MSP flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Best time to fly JFK to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.3% of the time and Friday flights 86.7%, against 81.3% for the route overall.
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
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 734 completed flights
Avg delay
110 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
81.3% on time across 750 flights
These figures cover 750 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 JFK 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 | 750 | 81.3% | 110 min | 1.60% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to Minneapolis
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LGA → MSPNew York to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 81.2% | 83.2% | 2.38% | 8am–11am, Fri (route) | DL 2510 06:00 |
| 2. EWR → MSPNewark to Minneapolis | Republic Airways | 81.2% | 86.7% | 6.33% | 2pm–5pm, Thu | — |
| 3. JFK → MSPNew York to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 80.0% | 81.3% | 1.60% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 2414 11:44 |
| 4. EWR → MSPNewark to Minneapolis | Delta Air Lines | 74.6% | 77.8% | 4.05% | 5am–8am, Fri | DL 1641 06:15 |
| 5. EWR → MSPNewark to Minneapolis | United Airlines | 72.3% | 73.1% | 1.08% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am243 flights88.3%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm266 flights87.5%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm239 flights67.2%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.3% of the time, against 67.2% for the evening window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 266 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
December is the weak month at 64.7% on time, against 91.0% in September. 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 93 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 72.8%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
35% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 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 15,056 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 6,141 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.60% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.53%.
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 1,029 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 82.2% on time across 750 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 750 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. 750 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 81.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 734 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to MSP questions
How often is JFK 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 18.7% of the 750 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is JFK to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
81.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on JFK to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.2%, 21 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 December delays on JFK to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 64.7% on time, compared with 91.0% in September. Across the year that is 26 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- JFK to LAX, a related route77.6%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.7%
- JFK to SFO, a related route74.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.3%
- 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. JFK to MSP and MSP to JFK 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.