Route reliability record
MSP→BJI
Minneapolis to Bemidji
- Flights
- 728
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 199 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 728 MSP to BJI flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 62 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 718 completed flights
Avg delay
120 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.24%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
83.8% on time across 728 flights
These figures cover 728 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to BJI
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 | 728 | 83.8% | 120 min | 1.24% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to BJI
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 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 728 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am2 flights—
- 11am–2pm364 flights83.7%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am362 flights84.2%
Scale runs 75% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 84.2% on time across 362 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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.
December is the weak month at 63.3% on time, against 95.1% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 80.6%. 8 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 73% 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.
- 73%Carrier
- 22%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 22% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 3.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,884 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 73%, 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 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.24% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.9% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 199 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 8pm–5am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 85.3% on time across 728 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 728 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in BJI after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 728 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 83.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 718 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to BJI questions
How often is MSP to BJI delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.2% of the 728 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is MSP to BJI compared with the rest of the country?
83.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
Does the departure time change the odds on MSP to BJI?
Not by much in this data. Every departure window falls within half a point of the others, so there is no hour worth rearranging a trip for. The overall rate of 83.8% is the figure to plan against.
How bad are December delays on MSP to BJI?
December is the weakest month at 63.3% on time, compared with 95.1% in May. Across the year that is 32 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
- BJI to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route69.9%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.6%
- MSP to ATL, a related route82.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record83.8%
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MSP to BJI and BJI 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.