Route reliability record
LGA→MSP
New York to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,889
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,020 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,889 LGA to MSP flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to MSP: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.2% of the time and Friday flights 86.6%, against 83.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 59 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,840 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.49%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
83.2% on time across 1,806 flights
These figures cover 1,889 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LGA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 83 | 88.6% | 73 min | 4.82% | A− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,806 | 83.2% | 83 min | 2.38% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA 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 20 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–8am413 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am317 flights93.2%
- 11am–2pm370 flights85.9%
- 2pm–5pm400 flights75.7%
- 5pm–8pm364 flights73.0%
- 8pm–5am25 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 93.2% of the time, against 73.0% for the evening window. That is 20 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 413 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 71.7% on time, against 94.0% 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 195 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.5%. 8 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 25,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, 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 9,945 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 25,241 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.49% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.
The 1,020 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.8% on time across 1,887 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,889 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. September runs 94.0% on time and December 71.7%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,840 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to MSP questions
How often is LGA 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 16.5% of the 1,889 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is LGA to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
83.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to MSP?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 93.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.0%, 20 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 LGA to MSP?
December is the weakest month at 71.7% on time, compared with 94.0% in September. Across the year that is 22 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 LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- LGA to ORD, a related route67.3%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.7%
- LGA to ATL, a related route76.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record88.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. LGA to MSP and MSP to LGA 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.