Route reliability record
MSP→ANC
Minneapolis to Anchorage
- Flights
- 777
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,519 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 777 MSP to ANC flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly MSP to ANC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.8%, against 73.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 770 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.51%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
70.7% on time across 706 flights
These figures cover 777 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to ANC
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 71 | 95.7% | 20 min | 1.41% | A |
| Delta Air Lines | 706 | 70.7% | 74 min | 0.42% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to ANC
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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am70 flights95.7%
- 8am–11am93 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm249 flights73.6%
- 5pm–8pm124 flights65.3%
- 8pm–5am241 flights68.8%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.7% of the time, against 65.3% for the evening window. That is 30 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 249 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP to ANC 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 MSP to ANC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.3%, a wide gap of 30.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.7%
- 8–11am75.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm73.6%
- 5–8pm65.3%
- 8pm–5am68.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 48 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 39.3% on time, against 86.9% in October. 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.9%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 60% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,171 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 15,242 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.51%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.3% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,519 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 82.8% on time across 777 flights, 10 points above 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 777 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 ANC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 777 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 73.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 770 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to ANC questions
How often is MSP to ANC delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.0% of the 777 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to ANC compared with the rest of the country?
73.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to ANC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.3%, 30 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 MSP to ANC?
December is the weakest month at 39.3% on time, compared with 86.9% in October. Across the year that is 48 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
- ANC to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- SEA to ANC, a related route76.5%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record95.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record70.7%
- 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. MSP to ANC and ANC to MSP 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.