Carrier route record

WNMSP→AUS

Southwest Airlines · Minneapolis to Austin

Flights: 339
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 20%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on MSP to AUS lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That rests on 339 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest 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

78.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 337 completed flights

Avg delay

45 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.59%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

80.0%

Every carrier on MSP to AUS, 1,685 flights

These figures cover 339 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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

Southwest against every carrier on MSP to AUS

Southwest flew 339 of the 1,685 flights on MSP to AUS, about 20% of it. Its 78.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 85.4% to Southwest at 78.6%. One 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	323	85.4%	69 min	0.31%	A+
Delta Air Lines	1,023	78.7%	58 min	0.88%	B+
Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample	339	78.6%	45 min	0.59%	B+

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Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 33 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am30 flights90.0%
8am–11am104 flights87.5%
11am–2pm158 flights76.3%
2pm–5pm30 flights56.7%
5pm–8pm17 flights—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.0% of the time, against 56.7% for the afternoon window. That is 33 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 158 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on MSP to AUS through the year

Jul–Sep 202526 flights—
Oct–Dec 2025115 flights76.5%
Jan–Mar 202655 flights85.2%
Apr–Jun 202682 flights77.8%
Jul–Sep 202661 flights82.0%

Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 78.6% on time across 339 flights.

Quarter by quarter Southwest on MSP to AUS held fairly steady: 76.5% in Oct–Dec 2025, 85.2% in Jan–Mar 2026, 77.8% in Apr–Jun 2026 and 82.0% in Jul–Sep 2026. A spread of 9 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 67.3%, a spread of 24 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Southwest on MSP to AUS runs when it is late

Southwest on MSP to AUS often beats the schedule: 89 of 337 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. Most of the lateness is short. 36 of the 72 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 15 reached an hour or more.

15+ min early89 flights26.4%
Within 15 min176 flights52.2%
15–29 min late36 flights10.7%
30–59 min late21 flights6.2%
1–2 hours late9 flights2.7%
2+ hours late6 flights1.8%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 337 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

15 of 65 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. In the other direction, 22 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at AUS.

The worst days

Worst days for Southwest on MSP to AUS

The latest arrival of the period was on 31 May 2026, 3 hours 36 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of Southwest on MSP to AUS in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
31 May 2026	3 hours 36 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
29 December 2025	3 hours 14 minutes	Carrier
28 December 2025	3 hours 5 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
28 June 2026	2 hours 26 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
26 October 2025	2 hours 21 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 3,251 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
55%
National Airspace System
24%
Carrier
21%

55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,251 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 55 to one. The split is drawn from 3,251 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.0% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.59%, 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 costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.

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.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 66.1% on time across 339 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 339 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 Southwest on MSP to AUS

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 339 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 78.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 337 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures