Carrier route record
DLMSP→BIS
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Bismarck
- Flights
- 400
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 39%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MSP to BIS lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 400 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to BIS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 396 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.50%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.7%
Every carrier on MSP to BIS, 1,028 flights
These figures cover 400 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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 BIS
Delta flew 400 of the 1,028 flights on MSP to BIS, about 39% of it. Its 76.8% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 83.2% to Delta at 76.8%.
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 Airlines | 628 | 83.2% | 72 min | 1.11% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 400 | 76.8% | 72 min | 0.50% | B+ |
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 400 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm6 flights—
- 2pm–5pm57 flights78.9%
- 5pm–8pm229 flights78.0%
- 8pm–5am108 flights72.6%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 78.9% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 72.6%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 229 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to BIS through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025132 flights71.8%
- Oct–Dec 202587 flights83.7%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights73.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights81.1%
Scale runs 65% 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 76.8% on time across 400 flights.
Delta on MSP to BIS did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 83.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 71.8%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 100 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 81.0% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.9%. 9 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 67% of the 6,611 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.
- 67%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, 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 4,446 of the 6,611 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,611 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.50%, 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 386 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.9% on time across 400 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 400 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 BIS
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 400 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 76.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 396 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.