Carrier route record
DLMSP→DFW
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,411
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MSP to DFW 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 1,411 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,378 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.4%
Every carrier on MSP to DFW, 3,261 flights
These figures cover 1,411 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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
Delta against every carrier on MSP to DFW
Delta flew 1,411 of the 3,261 flights on MSP to DFW, about 43% of it. Its 77.9% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 77.9% to Envoy at 66.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 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+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to DFW
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–8am266 flights86.5%
- 8am–11am328 flights82.0%
- 11am–2pm128 flights75.4%
- 2pm–5pm323 flights73.4%
- 5pm–8pm25 flights—
- 8pm–5am341 flights74.5%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.5% of the time, against 73.4% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 341 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 65.2% on time, 21 points below March, the best at 85.7%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. December was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 82.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.6%. 10 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 45% of the 18,000 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 8,090 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,929 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.35% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.99%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.3% 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 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.6% on time across 1,411 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,411 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 DFW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 85.7% on time and July 65.2%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,378 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to DFW, every carrier
- Delta on DFW to MSP, the return leg
- American Airlines on MSP to DFW75.7%
- Frontier Airlines on MSP to DFW72.3%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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.