Route reliability record
LAX→MSP
Los Angeles to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 2,109
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,535 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 2,109 LAX to MSP flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly LAX to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 92.0%, against 86.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 89 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,087 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
86.2% on time across 2,109 flights
These figures cover 2,109 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAX 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 | 2,109 | 86.2% | 57 min | 0.95% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 2,109 flights.
- 5am–8am365 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am356 flights89.5%
- 11am–2pm645 flights83.7%
- 2pm–5pm337 flights83.9%
- 5pm–8pm66 flights82.8%
- 8pm–5am340 flights83.6%
Scale runs 75% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.5% of the time, against 82.8% for the evening 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 645 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX 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 LAX to MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 82.8%, a real gap of 9.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.5%
- 8–11am89.5%
- 11am–2pm83.7%
- 2–5pm83.9%
- 5–8pm82.8%
- 8pm–5am83.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 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.
July is the worst month at 81.0% on time, 13 points below October, the best at 94.1%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 209 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 92.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 82.4%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 55% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,027 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,311 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 92.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% 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.
At 1,535 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.5% on time across 2,107 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,109 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. October runs 94.1% on time and July 81.0%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,087 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to MSP questions
How often is LAX to MSP delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.8% of the 2,109 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is LAX to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
86.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAX to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 82.8%, 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 July delays on LAX to MSP?
July is the weakest month at 81.0% on time, compared with 94.1% in October. Across the year that is 13 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 LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. LAX to MSP and MSP to LAX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed LAX to MSP’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.