Route reliability record
MCI→MSP
Kansas City to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,088
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 393 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 rests on 1,088 MCI to MSP flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly MCI to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.2%, 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 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 62 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,071 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.56%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
86.2% on time across 760 flights
These figures cover 1,088 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCI 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 | 760 | 86.2% | 105 min | 1.45% | A |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 328 | 77.0% | 83 min | 1.83% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on MCI 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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am121 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm167 flights86.7%
- 2pm–5pm244 flights75.6%
- 5pm–8pm191 flights77.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.0% of the time, against 75.6% for the afternoon window. That is 15 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 MCI 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 MCI to MSP, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 75.6%, a wide gap of 15.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.0%
- 8–11am81.7%
- 11am–2pm86.7%
- 2–5pm75.6%
- 5–8pm77.7%
- 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 30 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 94.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 78.3%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 59% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 9%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,966 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,894 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.56% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.4% 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 393 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.3% on time across 1,088 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,088 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. 1,088 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 83.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,071 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCI to MSP questions
How often is MCI 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 1,088 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MCI to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
83.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 MCI to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.6%, 15 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 September delays on MCI to MSP?
September is the weakest month at 64.6% on time, compared with 94.4% in October. Across the year that is 30 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 MCI — the return legseparate record
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MCI to MSP86.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on MCI to MSP77.0%
- MCI to DEN, a related route78.1%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- MCI to ORD, a related route74.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.2%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record77.0%
- 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. MCI to MSP and MSP to MCI 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.