Carrier route record
DLMSP→BIS
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Bismarck
- Flights
- 348
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MSP to BIS 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 an hour on average. That rests on 348 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 343 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.57%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.9%
Every carrier on MSP to BIS, 989 flights
These figures cover 348 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on MSP to BIS
Delta flew 348 of the 989 flights on MSP to BIS, about 35% of it. Its 78.4% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 83.7% to Delta at 78.4%.
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 | 641 | 83.7% | 57 min | 1.09% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page)thin sample | 348 | 78.4% | 57 min | 0.57% | B+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 348 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm9 flights—
- 5pm–8pm257 flights79.4%
- 8pm–5am82 flights74.1%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 79.4% on time. The full set of windows spans 5 points.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to BIS through the year
- Jul–Sep 202518 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202587 flights83.7%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights73.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights81.1%
- Jul–Sep 202662 flights71.7%
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 78.4% on time across 348 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 2026 at 71.7%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 87 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 73.3%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on MSP to BIS runs when it is late
Delta on MSP to BIS often beats the schedule: 93 of 343 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 74 late arrivals split 22 under half an hour, 26 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 26 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early93 flights27.1%
- Within 15 min176 flights51.3%
- 15–29 min late22 flights6.4%
- 30–59 min late26 flights7.6%
- 1–2 hours late19 flights5.5%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 343 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
19 of 84 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on MSP to BIS
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 May 2026, 3 hours 48 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 May 2026 | 3 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 March 2026 | 2 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 March 2026 | 2 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 May 2026 | 2 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 September 2025 | 2 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 60% of the 4,229 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,526 of the 4,229 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,229 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.57%, 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
7.6% 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.
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 5pm–8pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.6% on time across 348 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. 348 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. 348 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 78.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 343 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to BIS, every carrier
- Delta on BIS to MSP, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to BIS83.7%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.