Route reliability record

MSP→DFW

Minneapolis to Dallas-Fort Worth

Flights: 3,261
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 852 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,261 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,411 at 77.9% on time.

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.

On time

76.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,152 completed flights

Avg delay

83 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.45%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Delta

77.9% on time across 1,411 flights

These figures cover 3,261 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 DFW

The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on MSP to DFW
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,411	77.9%	59 min	1.35%	B
American Airlines	1,618	75.7%	99 min	3.52%	B−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	229	72.3%	107 min	1.75%	C
Envoy Airthin sample	3	66.7%	118 min	0.00%	C+

American Airlines cancels 3.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.

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 29 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am837 flights85.7%
8am–11am685 flights82.1%
11am–2pm288 flights75.0%
2pm–5pm700 flights71.5%
5pm–8pm371 flights57.1%
8pm–5am380 flights74.5%

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.1% on time, against 85.7% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 837 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 19 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.March best, December worst

December is the weak month at 65.9% on time, against 85.3% in March. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 298 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.1%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 62,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
41%
Late-arriving aircraft
36%
National Airspace System
19%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 62,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 61,733 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 25,000 of the 62,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 2.45% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.89%.

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 are the an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 852 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 runs 73.9% on time across 3,259 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

The sample behind these figures is 3,261 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 this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 85.3% on time and December 65.9%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 3,152 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

MSP to DFW questions

How often is MSP to DFW delayed?

About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.6% of the 3,261 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.

Which airline is most reliable on MSP to DFW?

Delta Air Lines leads at 77.9% on time across 1,411 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 75.7%, a gap of 2 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to DFW?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.1%, 29 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 DFW?

December is the weakest month at 65.9% on time, compared with 85.3% in March. Across the year that is 19 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. MSP to DFW and DFW to MSP are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures