Carrier route record
DLMSP→CLT
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,183
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 48%
- 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 CLT lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five 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 1,183 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to CLT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,165 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.9%
Every carrier on MSP to CLT, 2,446 flights
These figures cover 1,183 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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 CLT
Delta flew 1,183 of the 2,446 flights on MSP to CLT, about 48% of it. Its 80.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 81.6% to Delta at 80.2%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,263 | 81.6% | 83 min | 1.98% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,183 | 80.2% | 73 min | 1.27% | B |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to CLT
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 13 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–8am226 flights87.1%
- 8am–11am171 flights86.1%
- 11am–2pm208 flights78.7%
- 2pm–5pm217 flights74.4%
- 5pm–8pm157 flights75.0%
- 8pm–5am204 flights79.0%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.1% of the time, against 74.4% for the afternoon window. That is 13 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 226 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to CLT through the year
December is the weak month at 67.1% on time, against 93.5% in September. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.8%. 15 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 62% of the 17,000 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.
- 62%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 62%, 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 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,802 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.27% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.1% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 930 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 85.2% on time across 1,183 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 1,183 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on MSP to CLT
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 93.5% on time and December 67.1%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,165 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to CLT, every carrier
- Delta on CLT to MSP, the return leg
- American Airlines on MSP to CLT81.6%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- 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
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.