Route reliability record
MSP→ATL
Minneapolis to Atlanta
- Flights
- 3,489
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 907 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 3,489 MSP to ATL flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.0%, against 81.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 44 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,467 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.6% on time across 3,207 flights
These figures cover 3,489 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 MSP to ATL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 72 | 84.7% | 79 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,207 | 83.6% | 67 min | 0.47% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 210 | 51.7% | 69 min | 0.95% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to ATL
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am773 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am751 flights87.7%
- 11am–2pm476 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm758 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm481 flights74.9%
- 8pm–5am250 flights79.8%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.6% of the time, against 74.9% for the evening window. That is 16 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 773 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP to ATL 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 ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 74.9%, a wide gap of 15.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.6%
- 8–11am87.7%
- 11am–2pm75.0%
- 2–5pm75.9%
- 5–8pm74.9%
- 8pm–5am79.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 71.4% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 89.7%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 319 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.3%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 43,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 20,000 of the 43,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 42,567 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.49%, 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
5.9% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 907 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.
The return leg runs 79.9% on time across 3,509 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,489 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 ATL 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 89.7% on time and July 71.4%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,467 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to ATL questions
How often is MSP to ATL delayed?
Roughly 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 18.3% of the 3,489 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to ATL compared with the rest of the country?
81.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 MSP to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.9%, 16 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 MSP to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 71.4% on time, compared with 89.7% in September. Across the year that is 18 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
- ATL to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to ATL83.6%
- Frontier Airlines on MSP to ATL51.7%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record84.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record51.7%
- 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 ATL and ATL 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.