Route reliability record
MSP→CVG
Minneapolis to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 832
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 596 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 3 points 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 832 MSP to CVG flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to CVG: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.7% of the time and Saturday flights 87.4%, against 80.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
80.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 824 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.96%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
80.0% on time across 826 flights
These figures cover 832 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to CVG
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 Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 83.3% | 55 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 826 | 80.0% | 57 min | 0.97% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP to CVG
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.
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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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am91 flights85.4%
- 8am–11am36 flights91.7%
- 11am–2pm190 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm167 flights78.8%
- 5pm–8pm62 flights72.1%
- 8pm–5am286 flights78.8%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.7% of the time, against 72.1% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 286 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP to CVG by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On MSP to CVG, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 72.1%, a wide gap of 19.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am85.4%
- 8–11am91.7%
- 11am–2pm80.5%
- 2–5pm78.8%
- 5–8pm72.1%
- 8pm–5am78.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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 64.7% on time, against 95.2% in October. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.9%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 9,344 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,621 of the 9,344 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,344 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.96% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.6% 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.
The 596 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 86.5% on time across 832 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 832 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 CVG after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 832 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 80.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 824 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to CVG questions
How often is MSP to CVG delayed?
About 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 20.0% of the 832 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to CVG compared with the rest of the country?
80.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points 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 CVG?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.1%, 20 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 December delays on MSP to CVG?
December is the weakest month at 64.7% on time, compared with 95.2% in October. Across the year that is 31 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
- CVG to MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ORD to CVG, a related route72.1%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record83.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MSP to CVG and CVG 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.