Route reliability record
MSP→BOS
Minneapolis to Boston
- Flights
- 1,847
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,124 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five 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 1,847 MSP to BOS flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to BOS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.8% of the time and Saturday flights 86.4%, against 78.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,824 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
78.1% on time across 1,847 flights
These figures cover 1,847 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to BOS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,847 | 78.1% | 60 min | 1.08% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to BOS
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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 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–8am351 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am371 flights81.9%
- 11am–2pm290 flights70.5%
- 2pm–5pm366 flights66.9%
- 5pm–8pm124 flights70.2%
- 8pm–5am345 flights80.2%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.8% of the time, against 66.9% for the afternoon window. That is 26 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 371 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 87.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 181 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.5%. 11 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. National Airspace System accounts for 52% of the 24,000 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.
- 52%National Airspace System
- 32%Carrier
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
52% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 13,000 minutes out of 24,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 24,037 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 1,124 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.1% on time across 1,851 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,847 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in BOS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 87.7% on time and October 67.6%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 1,824 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to BOS questions
How often is MSP to BOS delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.9% of the 1,847 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to BOS compared with the rest of the country?
78.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to BOS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 66.9%, 26 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are October delays on MSP to BOS?
October is the weakest month at 67.6% on time, compared with 87.7% in May. Across the year that is 20 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
- BOS to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route69.9%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MSP to BOS and BOS 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.