Route reliability record
MSP→AUS
Minneapolis to Austin
- Flights
- 1,678
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,042 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,678 MSP to AUS flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to AUS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.9%, against 78.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,664 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.72%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
77.4% on time across 1,021 flights
These figures cover 1,678 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 MSP to AUS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 321 | 85.3% | 66 min | 0.31% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,021 | 77.4% | 61 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 336 | 76.0% | 46 min | 0.60% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to AUS
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.
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 17 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–8am358 flights85.7%
- 8am–11am423 flights82.4%
- 11am–2pm170 flights75.4%
- 2pm–5pm342 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm187 flights68.5%
- 8pm–5am198 flights78.5%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.7% of the time, against 68.5% for the evening window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 423 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 63.3% on time, 25 points below February, the best at 88.7%. 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 159 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.7%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 50% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 50%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, 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 10,000 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 20,631 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.72%, below the national 1.81% 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 8.1%. 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,042 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 runs 76.6% on time across 1,678 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 1,678 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 AUS 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. February runs 88.7% on time and July 63.3%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,664 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to AUS questions
How often is MSP to AUS delayed?
About 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 21.3% of the 1,678 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to AUS compared with the rest of the country?
78.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point 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 AUS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.5%, 17 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 AUS?
July is the weakest month at 63.3% on time, compared with 88.7% in February. Across the year that is 25 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
- AUS to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to AUS85.3%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to AUS77.4%
- Southwest Airlines on MSP to AUS76.0%
- MSP to ORD, a related route69.9%
- DEN to AUS, a related route76.1%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.6%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record85.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.0%
- 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. MSP to AUS and AUS 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.