Carrier route record

DLMSP→AUS

Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Austin

Flights: 1,021
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 61%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on MSP to AUS lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four 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 1,021 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to AUS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,011 completed flights

Avg delay

61 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.88%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.7%

Every carrier on MSP to AUS, 1,678 flights

These figures cover 1,021 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on MSP to AUS

Delta flew 1,021 of the 1,678 flights on MSP to AUS, most of the route. Its 77.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 85.3% to Southwest at 76.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on MSP to AUS
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	321	85.3%	66 min	0.31%	A+
Delta Air Lines (this page)	1,021	77.4%	61 min	0.88%	B+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	336	76.0%	46 min	0.60%	B+

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on MSP to AUS

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 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–8am1 flights—
8am–11am351 flights81.9%
11am–2pm17 flights—
2pm–5pm287 flights76.2%
5pm–8pm167 flights68.9%
8pm–5am198 flights78.5%

Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 81.9% of the time, against 68.9% for the evening window. That is 13 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 351 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on MSP to AUS through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, July worst

July is the worst month at 62.8% on time, 26 points below February, the best at 88.5%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.2%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 14,000 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.

Carrier
52%
Late-arriving aircraft
25%
National Airspace System
22%
Extreme weather
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, 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 7,143 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 13,869 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.88%, 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 costs

8.6% 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 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 77.5% on time across 1,021 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,021 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.

What to do with this

Booking Delta on MSP to AUS

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,021 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 77.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,011 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures